Customer Reviews

Coming Up Close: Retrospective

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yes, a good chunk of the material here is very '80s, but it's all excellent. Despite the somewhat dated recordings, the songs pulse with Mann's thoughtfulness, intrigue and a touch of seething anger. Two of 'til tuesday's three hits are on this CD, which is great, but I am scratching my head at why "Looking Over My Shoulder" was left out. What a GREAT song! And it was a hit! Its omission baffles me. With that song, this would have been a five-star CD, but it's still pretty darn fabulous. If you are an Aimee Mann fan, this CD is definitely up your alley, my friend.

One summer in the mid-to-late-1980s my family took a sidewinding trip to Ocean City, Maryland to visit my relatives. On the radio at the time were such high-power ballads as Heart's "These Dreams" and Ric Ocasek's "Emotion in Motion"...and then there was Til Tuesday, a band with a distinctly flamboyant veneer masking true depth. To see Aimee Mann realize her true artistic forum in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" is, for such a musical connoisseur as myself, a true testament to the talent of the woman whose band reflects such great memories for me as throwing a fluorescent blue ball on the Ocean City beach while the waves pounded the surf and the TV show "Valerie" (which later became "The Hogan Family") played on the television eight floors above. Everything's changed now, but one still can unload with a few of the terrific songs: "Voices Carry", whose synthesized instrumentals always sounded good on lonely backroad nights, and "What About Love" (especially the opening chord, which plays like a haunting conglomeration of ghostly loss and what sounds vaguely like a hiccup). Many people drag 80s music down, yet for so many people of our generation, its innocence coalesced perfectly with our childhoods. I have followed Ms. Mann for a few years now (from her "Whatever" album to her role as the nine-toed woman in "The Big Lebowski") , and I'm pleased that she has broken through. Yet at a time where I tend to analyze music for its artistic merit, I need not question 'Til Tuesday. Like Punky Brewster, Rubik's cubes, and bright fluorescent balls, she made my childhood all the more memorable. Great stuff.

Having just been aquainted with the music of Aimee Mann, I have to admit I had reservations about purchasing this album. I'm not a fan of synth-pop, and "Voices Carry" certainly fits into that category.

Needless to say, "Voices Carry" and "Love In A Vacuum" are the weakest tracks on this compilation. Aimee had the hindsight to see the limitations of synthesized pop and dared to progress towards a more organic sound (at a time when it wasn't in vogue to do so). This CD certainly reflects that decision. So many songs on this CD alone qualify as classic pop: "J For Jules", "Limits To Love", "The Other End (Of The Telescope)", "David Denies", "Long Gone Buddy" etc.

Aimee Mann is a brilliant songwriter, arguably the most talented of her generation. Here we can track the development of her talent through her initial 'til Tuesday project. If you have any interest in pop music (in the vein of The Beatles), you NEED this album.

Vaguely remembering a few songs from the band, I bought this as a curiousity, sort of liked it upon listening, and then it grew on me. This collection of songs from 'Til Tuesday's first 3 cd's is an excellent compilation of thoroughly listenable music, featuring Aimee Mann's beautiful voice and knowing lyrics in melodic compositions of synthesized musical sounds. There is something that just works about the flow of tracks in this compilation (which is a rare phenomenon of greatest hits records). Standouts are the resounding "No One Is Watching You Now", the upbeat syncopations of "On Sunday," and the sentimental favorite "Coming Up Close", though this entire cd has a wealth of original vintage 1980's pop sounds, that haven't lost their touch or appeal, suggesting a certain timelessness in the songwriting and production. It's good road trip music, or even for studying. Simply a great cd.

Long before Aimee Mann was the darling of the indie-pop world and earned her well deserved success with the "Magnolia" soundtrack, there was her first success with the band 'til tuesday. Often dismissed with so many others as an 80's one-hit wonder, this collection bears testimony that their music still stands out and that Aimee's new-found popularity is by no means a fluke.

Best known for the song (and video) "Voices Carry", this collection is packed with excellent soul-bearing material, criminally overlooked and pre-dating the whole Lilith Fair movement by nearly a decade. Even back in the 80's, Aimee Mann was considered a brilliant songwriter, filling her work with impeccable musical hooks and confessional lyrics. Musically it does seem to be a tad dated by today's standards, however what is here is 80's pop music at it's height. The production is glossy but not overbearing. The songs still come shining through. And all brilliantly remastered.

It is not a complete collection; there are some ommissions, noteably a song from the first album and many from "Everything's Different Now" (which is a "best-of" album in it's own right - get that one as well). But all the major highlights are here. If you are merely purchasing this for the big hit single (honestly the low point of the album!), you'll find yourself pleasnatly suprised once you realize there was much more to 'til tuesday. If you just heard of Aimee from "Magnolia", welcome to one of pop's best kept secrets.

Simply put...it is an awesome CD and a must for any Aimee Mann/Til Tuesday fan. The only reason I did not give it five stars is because the record company masterminds who put it together failed to include "Looking Over My Shoulder" (from the "Voices Carry" CD). I would love to know who decides what tracks to put on these "greatest hits" collections because they ALWAYS seem to forget an obvious choice or two!!!

I wasn't really much of a Til Tuesday fan back in the '80s but now that I have taken the time to listen to songs other than "Voices Carry" and "Coming Up Close" (the two songs I used to hear a lot in the '80s), I have found myself enchanted with the intricate melodies and well-written lyrics. The only song on this cd I don't particularly care for is "Love is a Vacuum" otherwise I love the entire cd. "Do It Again" (an unreleased track) is a great closer. This little catchy ditty is simply irresistable as is "The Other End (of the Telescope)" and "No One is Watching You". Simply great pop music.

David Denies, J id for Jules, Telescope... Lots of great songs I missed the first time.

If you're coming to this via Magnolia, this is a great sampler, though close to half of the songs come from "Everythings Different Now", and these songs are closer in spirit to the modern Mann (i.e. less cheesy 80's synth and vocal ticks).

There's lots to love here!

Aimee Mann has great pipes and this album shows it. Crank it up and play the first three songs. The song "Voices Carry" really made the band famous, leading to much airplay on beaches. The last half of the album is not up to the same level (although I would have chosen other songs), which is to be expected for most greatest-hits albums. This does a nice job of portraying typical songs during the 80s-90s era.

Til Tuesday made some videos, and this was one of the first CDs that I purchased which had a "CD EXTRA" label on the disc, so I was eager to put it in a computer and see the bits that were provided for the four songs that had video clips. My big disappointment was that "The Other End (Of the Telescope)" didn't have any visual component. The credit page lists "Elvis Costello - background vocals on `The Other End (Of The Telescope)'" and not getting a picture of him is almost comic for anyone who is used to getting magazines with pictures of people that look so much like him that the picture captions need to be checked to see Who is that really?

I have the four Til Tuesday CDs, and listening to any of them usually comes down to picking out a few songs that I really want to hear. All of the songs are musical enough to be liked, but I want to hear something that will bring me up to some other level, and "Coming Up Close" reminds me that people actually have feelings that respond to those aspirations. Aimee Mann's solo albums are still group songs, complicated enough to involve as many musicians as Til Tuesday did, and I keep buying whatever she's in, definitely including the video on the "Magnolia" DVD. I'm glad she has fans, and buying this CD could help anyone hear some of what I like best about music since 1980, when I suspected that college professors were not listening to enough of this kind of thing. If this is a pseudo-intellectual thing, it still seems to be coming from the right place.