By Rashod D. Ollison , rashod.ollison@baltsun.com|September 07, 2008
Something about their happy, shiny, smiling faces and bell-like greetings annoy her, even unnerve her a little. Aimee Mann often notices these strangers while hanging around Los Angeles, her home base these days. These people on the street - "smilers," she calls them - occasionally stop her and others who aren't walking around with permanent Colgate grins.
"A friend of mine and I used to laugh at how there's always somebody on the street who smiles all the time and is the first one to say, 'Hey, smile!' I get that all the time," says the singer-songwriter.
For her new CD, Mann wanted to explore the interior lives of complicated characters, those who may not have a reason to smile every minute of the day. But still they're able to find a little joy, perhaps an epiphany, in all their personal disarray. Smiling plastic strangers may annoy such characters. So Mann decided to call her new album @#%&*! Smilers.
"You can provide your own curse word there," says the artist, who headlines the Recher Theatre on Tuesday night.
The CD, her seventh release, is the proper follow-up to 2005's The Forgotten Arm, a keen (if at times overwrought) concept album. One More Drifter in the Snow, which hit stores the next year, was a Christmas album whose immediacy and uncluttered approach influenced Smilers. This time, Mann wanted to forgo high-minded lyrical concepts and concentrate on complete songs.
"With this record, I was in the mood to take a direction where this is a collection of short stories about different characters," says the artist, who last week was at home in L.A. "Writing about broken or damaged people is more interesting. Being in the music industry, you run into a lot of people like that."
With a detached, almost novelistic touch, Mann narrates stories about an addict looking for a fix ("Freeway"), a lover scorned and on the run ("Phoenix") and a faded hometown hero ("Ballantines"). At times, she gets reflective, as in "31 Today," an unflinching look at her days as a struggling musician in Boston. "I thought my life would be better by now/But it's not and I don't know where to turn," she croons.
Overseen by producer Paul Bryan, the arrangements on Smilers are colorful but subtle. Nothing competes with Mann's silk-and-leather vocals.
