plorentz's Full Review: The Forgotten Arm [Digipak] by Aimee Mann
And then she took up boxing. Some broads take up yoga, or pilates, or daytime talk shows, but she always said that there was only one thing she loved more than writing songs, and that was sparring the word sounded so strange coming out of those sharp, taut lips of hers, coming out of that no-skin-off-my-back detachment. But she loved the ring, felt viscerally alive there, even if she apologized every time she got a good punch in. Yep. She took up boxing. Thats just the kind of doll she was I guess. And thats where The Forgotten Arm started. In the ring.
I always knew she was a fighter. I mean, the way she went after those major labels back in the 90s. She was no preening George Michael, I can tell you that. She didnt have to prove to the world that she was an artist; she was just tired of being made over by pin-striped wise-guys in fancy offices. But thats not the fight she brings to the ring. Shed say shes not angry in there that you cant be, that you gotta leave it behind, that you gotta be careful on an emotional level, cause its gonna get bloody on the physical side. Thats the way she puts it anyway, and I got no reason to doubt her. After all, thats the way she writes her songs. Shes careful with the melodies everythings gotta be in its right place - because the words are gonna hurt.
The Forgotten Arm, you ask? Well, its a boxing move some friend of hers made up. Total drug addict, but also a boxer. And watching him all those years, taking the 12 steps toward rock bottom, the 12 steps back, and back down, and back up again, she made up a character she called John a Vietnam Vet, a boxer, a drug addict, a real prize this one. But impossibly sexy too, as such unsavories tend to be. So she made up a gal for the bastard, called her Caroline doesnt really matter who she was really, only that she was the kind of doll to fall for the kind of sap John was. Just like that song about how much it hurts to feel so much tenderness, and how shed like to break it off, but, baby, youre so, so beautiful. Something like that. Beautiful, its called. Beautiful it is. But with a rotting inside. Like how you eat a peach, and its all soft and sweet and juicy, and then theres this hard, ugly pit at the center of it.
She wrote a whole record of this stuff, a pretty rockin record too, if clean-crafted, classicist pop with a 70s radio bent to it trips your trigger. She even made up some kind of story for these two. Nothing real specific, mind you, just some riff-raff about running away to California, tryin to leave all their woes behind, and in the process realizing that, no matter where they go, or how fast they get there, they carry their woes with themselves. Theyre their own woes, get it? He talks about how he cant live sober and he cant live loaded, about how much he wants to be with her and about how much he wants her to leave him, about how theres something wrong with him that even he cant see. Standard addict talk, really.
But she would say that this isnt really about addiction, and Id tend to agree with her. With all the fancy-schmancy vintage pulp novel art direction, shed want us to believe that this is a story or a concept. Oh yeah, and most monkeys would have us believe they like their bright pink behinds hanging out like that all the time. Its all semantics, babies. Sure, she started with a concept. She started with boxing. She started with John and Caroline and running away, but as the time counter runs out on this little platter, you know that whatever all that concept stuff was, it was just a way to write a few good songs, to make em stick together, to make em stand out together in a catalog full of good songs that sound a lot like these. And Ill be that monkeys uncle if they dont. Change the story line, change the character names, maybe add a little Bachara-zzle-dazzle to the arrangements, and songs with intriguingly explanatory titles like Thats How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart and I Cant Get My Head Around It coulda been contendahs for the Magnolia soundtrack, or some other upcoming P.T. Anderson flick. Hydrangea, maybe. Dahlia. Friggin Hosta, even.
Its no-brainer type stuff for a guy like Paul Lorentz (that pansy!), especially with those lush illustrations of semi-naked male torsos crumpled together in combat, bulbous muscles twisted like fleshy wreckage, glowing under stage lights and the eyes of a thousand unseen spectators, a moment of titillating man-on-man action captured in rich, shadowy hues and sleek, active brush-strokes. Hes the kind of guy whod tell you the record was worth it just for the artwork, that the uniformly excellent songwriting is almost overshadowed by it, that the pleasure he derives from looking at The Forgotten Arm is ultimately greater than the considerable pleasure he gets listening to it.
Of course, as soon as its out of his mouth, hell be quick to change the subject to how much he digs the dreary magnificence (because thats the way pansies like him talk) of the horns in King of the Jailhouse, the urgency underlying the resignation in songs like Good-bye Caroline and I Cant Help You Anymore, the pervasive sense of irresistible futility that hangs over the whole record like a sprig of Christmas mistletoe. As if all that smart talk would make us forget that hes a degenerate. Some friggin guys, I tell you.
But then, hed have a point too. That Aimee Mann. Shes one inscrutable doll. This new record? Its just another one of her records, sure to be a critical favorite, or if not a critical favorite, than a hipster touchstone, a litmus test for the artsy-fartsies to show who really knows their stuff and who's just listening to Lite FM. If you know her, you're gonna like her. If you dont know her, you probably never will. Unless you ever get in the ring with her. And then youll remember that blonde girlie with the pointy elbows who kept saying, Im sorry. Im sorry. Im sorry. Every time she blocks one of your punches, Im sorry.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
The Forgotten Arm by Aimee Mann
SuperEgo Records
Released 5/3/05
Produced by Joe Henry
47 min.
SONGS: Dear John King of the Jailhouse Goodbye Caroline Going Through the Motions I Cant Really Get My Head Around It She Really Wants You Video Little Bombs Thats How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart I Cant Help You Anymore I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas Beautiful
Aimee Mann songs have a literal quality to them, sharp, spare short stories set to music so it was probably inevitable that she would one day make a c...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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