'til tuesday
Lead singer Aimee Mann, who writes most of her group's songs, is obviously not looking to win any Pollyanna contests. A random sampling of lines from this album might include: "Something has torn me apart/Oh, but what do I care"; "He made me feel so second-best/I never should have let him do it"; "I'm getting pretty tired/of living on hope"; "and he just got back in his car and drove away." Still, Mann does seem to have some insight, however grim, into human nature; her songs often seem to be explanations of bad behavior rather than just complaints. She and her three bandmates strike an early Eurythmics sort of musical attitude, though her voice isn't quite the instrument that Annie Lennox's is. Vague hints of monotony creep in, so the variations in such tracks as Have Mercy or Sleeping and Waking seem especially welcome. It's probably also true that while heard consecutively the songs on this album could lead to a fit of minor depression, taken in smaller doses they could be effectively sobering. The band's 1985 hit Voices Carry was no bubblegummer, after all. If you've got to get back to reality, you might as well dance your way there. (Epic)
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