Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
No Dodo, September 25, 2005
The best thing about the eighties band 'Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann has long been regarded as something of a best kept secret, an epithet not dispelled by the collapse of her first solo record label Imago after one 1993 album, and then, when the label that released her next album, I'm With Stupid (1995), Geffen, got taken over by the conglomerate Universal, who tried to force her new material in a more commercial direction, by her jumping ship.
Happily, although it took until 1999 before any new material surfaced, by launching her own label, Superego, Aimee Mann had the last laugh, buying back her album, taking creative control and achieving a far better royalty rate in the process.
The film Magnolia, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, marked her return, featured nine original Aimee Mann songs, four of which resurface here, including her Oscar-nominated song Save Me (not on the US version of the album).
Not having the Magnolia soundtrack album I cannot tell you if all of these are all new recordings or whether there is some overlap, but the song Nothing Is Good Enough, an instrumental in Magnolia, has full lyrics on Bachelor No. 2.
Aimee Mann has had a number of Top Fifty singles in the UK, and has made a number of appearances on Later With Jools Holland, and is therefore known as a highly talented and incisive singer-songwriter, her sharp lyrical wit leavened by her sense of melody, and the creative freedom she clearly enjoys here resulted in her strongest album to date.
In some ways it was business as usual, as regular collaborators from the past, such as Julianna Hatfield, Glenn Tilbrook, Michael Hausman (from 'Til Tuesday), Jon Brion and Grant Lee Phillips appear on the record, and the song The Fall of the World's Own Optimist was written with Elvis Costello, with whom she had previously written The Other End of The Telescope for 'Til Tuesday, though the other musicians on the record, such as Michael Lockwood and John Sands, overall make a more valuable contribution. The acerbic Calling It Quits was also a single in the UK, and the British edition of this album includes the extra track Backfire
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Aimee Mann ~ Bachelor No. 2, August 15, 2001
I discovered this album again after I saw the beautiful movie Magnolia. Aimee's music is used wonderfully through that movie, and gave some of the scenes that extra emotional feeling. This European release has some bonustracks and also the video for the Oscar nominated song Save Me, from ofcourse the Magnolia soundtrack. I'm glad that because the movie, Aimee has gained more attention, that she rightfully deserves.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
An American Sarah McLaughlin, February 29, 2008
Bachelor No. 2 was a comeback album for one of the breakout hits of the 80's, Til Tuesday's Aimee Mann. With hits like "Love in a Vacuum" and "Voices Carry," the Boston-based band seemed to be on the verge of superstardom; however, the band broke up and Aimee tried for years to establish herself as a solo act more interested in artistic merit rather than commercial success. It wasn't until 1999 when Aimee, after establishing her own record label, was able to break through and succeed in her goal. The intricate detail in her writing is evident in every track on this album, particularly on the song, Deathly, my personal favorite due to its moving orchestration and the way she uses her voice like an instrument to pull the listener into the emotion of the piece. Other standouts are Cigarettes and Redvines, The Fall of the World's Own Optimist, Save Me, the song nominated for an Oscar from the soundtrack of the movie "Magnolias," and Calling it Quits. If someone who hasn't heard much from Aimee is looking for some sort of comparison, I believe that she and Sarah McLachlan have a lot in common. They tend to take a long time in between producing albums, they tend to try new approaches when they do produce their music, and they are geniuses as writers as well as performers which their albums plainly demonstrate. Aimee Mann is a fantastic artist who writes deadly-accurate lyrics. You would do well to purchase this album along with her other, "Lost in Space."
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by Aimee Mann 
