Aimee Mann
Mental Illness

„Rollercoasters and Ferris Wheels

You like how it feels

Round and round ‘til you lose yourself in the air”

from “Rollercoasters”

Mental illness, a companion of most adult human beings, is the theme of Aimee Mann's ninth studio album.

Question: Can a ninth album say something new or revolutionize an artist's career? I don't know, especially in the case of Aimee Mann, who, after all, has never proposed something different over her now two-decade-long career (yet not lacking in quality): the singer-songwriter has always remained in a territory between rock, country, and folk accompanied by her faithful guitar.

However, “Mental Illness” is an album made of eleven tracks that show us a maturity that Mann, in my opinion, had not yet reached. Melancholy is the emotion that permeates the entire record and makes it a perfect travel companion for the autumn/winter season. There are no jolts, everything is wrapped in a dull patina, that veil usually found on the boundary between memories and what we think we remember, buried in our imagination.

Mann is a woman who looks back and self-analyzes (and analyzes us) throughout the entire album, accompanied by her faithful acoustic guitar, faint touches of drums and bass, and gentle intrusions of strings. And so, we talk about the difficulty of holding the pieces of our existence together in front of others, even when we just want to scream (“Goose Snow Cone”), the false securities of life (“Patient Zero”), the small coping mechanisms that help us move forward (“Good for me”). All with the brutal honesty of someone who has finally realized they understand nothing about life.

And if I said this album adds nothing innovative to Mann's career, maybe I was wrong. The milestone Aimee has reached with this album is the ability to say whatever she wants and say it her own way, in utter simplicity, without needing to prove or add anything. Subtracting until reaching the core of her own existence and her compositional/communicative skills.