Aimee Mann – Whatever (1993)

Unbelievable USA logo by Sarca @ caughtmegaming

USA Artists (so far): Aimee Mann

.

[Album 480/1001]

I had a practically perfect narrative worked out for this one.

After the first listen, Whatever felt somewhat indistinguishable, very ho hum, very meh, very, well, whatever.

This is great, the review practically wrote itself, I’ll do the obligatory second listen and…oh, I really like that second track. Maybe I’ll give the whole thing another spin…or another dozen spins. Dang.

Don’t you just hate it when a practically perfect narrative is ruined by a practically perfect album?!

.

.

Although the full album is far superior to my initial lukewarm impression, it’s the second track, 50 Years After the Fair, that is particularly special.

It’s unbelievably catchy, for one, but the true beauty lies in its deceivingly heartbreaking lyrics.

First, the optimism for better days ahead, helping people keep faith through the Great Depression:

“But how beautiful it was – ‘tomorrow’
We’ll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the ’30’s, but our belts were tight”

Not unlike that wonderful line from The Shawshank Redemption about hope being a good thing, maybe the best of things.

Only in this case, although the hope got them through, decades later, when the bright ‘tomorrow’ still hadn’t been realized, the hope was replaced by sadness:

“The future never came around
It hurts to even think of those days
The damage we do
By the hopes that we raise”

All of which, I missed entirely on the first listen, just nodding along with the gentle, uplifting melody.

That happy/sad, bleak/bright contrast is a common characteristic of most of my favourite artists; if Whatever is a good indication of the rest of her catalogue, I could see Aimee Mann joining that favourites list someday in the future.

A future, or ‘tomorrow,’ that I’m pretty sure will come around.