Aimee Mann, 'Magnolia Soundtrack'

Make no mistake. ‘Magnolia’ might be a soundtrack in name but this is essentially an Aimee Mann album. Indeed, so many of the tracks are culled from Mann’s work that she actually gets title billing on the album sleeve. And when you find out that the film’s director, Paul Thomas Anderson, created characters and situations after listening to Mann’s material, you can see why you should add this to her canon of work.

“So don’t work your stuff”, Mann sings on ‘Deathly’, “because I’ve got troubles enough”. A sense of perspective is required here. Mann was getting the unenviable reputation of releasing critically acclaimed albums to low sales. Legal battles had hampered her creativity so we should certainly forgive the introspective nature of the tracks. And yet from adversity came the sweet sound of triumph. It’s thought that this soundtrack, which was being recorded at the same time as her own record ‘Bachelor No 2’ (both albums share four tracks) might have been her final hurrah in the music industry. Well, those kinds of setbacks do tend to put a dampener on things.

Yet Mann’s ‘to hell with it’ attitude breathes new life into the material. ‘Momentum’ veritably bounces along (…”I agree with the stuff about seizing the day”) while ‘Build That Wall’ has a cacophony of instruments allowing Mann to break free from her previous restrictions (“you can’t pin this one on me”). Finding her own voice, Mann even comes across as a torch singer on ‘You Do’ - the track is so sumptuous that you’ll want to hear it all day long. Paired with the stark, confessional ‘Wise Up’, this gives the record its central pull. How the latter was nominated for an Oscar but ended up losing to Phil Collins work for Tarzan is, though utterly unjust, in keeping with the Mann story. She may not have nabbed the statue but as her nominated song told us, she wasn’t going to stop either.