"I always thought I could help her sound go in a different direction," says Bryan, who produced One More Drifter in the Snow. A multi-instrumentalist, he's also Mann's musical director on the road. "We were able to add more weight on the bottom end of the sonic spectrum, more weight on the rhythm section. She can handle it. She can get right in the groove."
The sound of Smilers is lush, sporting a rich sonic sheen (tasteful strings, layers of distorted keyboard lines) that helps Mann's songs become more indelible with repeated listens.
"I was thinking, 'If Aimee's done this already, I don't want to do it,' " Bryan says. "If she's never had a horn section, let's try that. Her music has always been so guitar-heavy. I thought let's just use more keyboards. ... It's a little different - at least that was the attempt."
Early in her career, on Geffen Records in the mid '90s, she often fought with label suits over artistic direction. They wanted pop hits. She wanted to follow her melodic muse and nurture her songwriting. She also wasn't interested in repeating or reshaping the sound that initially brought her fameas part of the '80s new wave group 'Til Tuesday. So at the dawn of the decade, she became an independent artist, a decision she certainly doesn't regret.
"I want to make a living. I'm not an idiot," Mann says. "But the major-label system counts on people to be rock stars - maybe, one day. But I never cared about that. I just wanted to make good records. And I felt that if you didn't think my records were good, you didn't have to sign me."
Since becoming an indie artist with 2000's well-received Bachelor No. 2, Mann has doggedly worked on her craft, sometimes challenging listeners with songs that don't exactly wash over you upon the first listen. But her music has never been inaccessible or dissonant. Her intelligent songwriting peaked with the 2000 soundtrack for the acclaimed film Magnolia. Her song "Save Me" was later nominated for an Academy Award.
Her output since then has veered off in ambitious directions. On Smilers, though, Mann comes full circle in a sense - making subtle, melodic songs about reality as she sees it. Things aren't always so sunny.
"There are some people who think my writing is depressing," Mann says. "To me, [the songs] are about interesting subjects. It's about having the sanctity of knowing where you are, accepting where you are. You can't be positive unless you face the reality around you."
if you go
See Aimee Mann at the Recher Theatre, 512 York Road in Towson, Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Tickets are $27.50 and are available at Ticketmaster by calling 410-547-7328 or going to ticketmaster.com.
