Aimee Mann in W Magazine’s Long May They Rock: Nine Trailblazing Women Who Rewrote the Rules of Music

[W Magazine]

From Apollonia and Debbie Harry to Aimee Mann and Crystal Waters, we salute the unstoppable artists whose sounds, styles, and stories continue to define generations.

 By Alex Hawgood

AIMEE MANN

Aimee Mann’s creative process starts with a feeling—one she doesn’t fully understand until she picks up a guitar. “When you’re playing music, you’ll go, ‘Oh, that’s what’s been going on. That’s how I feel,’ ” she said. “It just all happens kind of at the same time.”

Mann first found success in the 1980s with the rock group ’Til Tuesday. In the ’90s, after ricocheting between record labels, she went solo, figuring anyone who cared enough would find her. Now a reunion with ’Til Tuesday is on deck. “Practicing those old songs feels like karaoke,” Mann joked, referring to cult classics such as “Voices Carry,” the 1985 hit that was beloved, in part, for its soap opera–esque video in which her boyfriend tries in vain to control her.

Mann holds a singular place in the American tradition of musical malaise. Or, as she put it, “Here’s a thing that’s legitimately sad, but also you can find the humor in it.” Case in point: “Save Me,” the Oscar-nominated song from the 1999 movie Magnolia, with lyrics like “You struck me dumb / Like radium / Like Peter Pan or Superman / You will come.”

“As soon as you start worrying about marketing to an audience, it’s over,” Mann says of her independent approach to music. “I can’t tell you how you’re supposed to feel.” That sensibility now extends to a graphic memoir, written and illustrated by hand, which she estimates will be out in a year or two. “It is mood-altering to be creative,” she said.

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