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Aimee Elizabeth Mann (born September 8, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter. Over the course of four decades, she has released more than a dozen albums as a solo artist and with other musicians. She is noted for her sardonic and literate lyrics about dark subjects. Mann's work with the producer Jon Brion in the 1990s was influential on American alternative rock. Mann was born in Richmond, Virginia, and studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In the 1980s, after playing with the Young Snakes and Ministry, she co-founded the new wave band 'Til Tuesday and wrote their top-ten single "Voices Carry" (1985). 'Til Tuesday released three albums and disbanded in 1990 when Mann left to pursue a solo career. Mann released her first solo album, Whatever, in 1993, followed by I'm With Stupid in 1995. Both earned positive reviews but low sales, and placed Mann in conflict with her record company, Geffen. She achieved wider recognition for her contributions to the soundtrack for the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia (1999). Her song "Save Me" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal. After Geffen refused to release her third album, Bachelor No. 2, Mann released it under her own label, SuperEgo Records, in 2000. It achieved acclaim and strong sales, establishing Mann as a career artist who could work outside the major label system. Mann has released seven solo albums since. In 2014, she released an album with Ted Leo as the Both. Mann also paints and makes comics, and has appeared in film and television series including The Big Lebowski, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven Universe, The West Wing and Portlandia. Her awards include two Grammy Awards, including Best Folk Album for Mental Illness (2017). In 2006, she was named one of the greatest living songwriters by NPR and Paste. Early life Mann was born at the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, on September 8, 1960. When she was three, her mother had an affair and became pregnant and her parents divorced. Mann was kidnapped by her mother and her new boyfriend and taken to Europe, where they traveled. Mann's father, a marketing executive, hired a private detective, who brought her back from England a year later to a new stepmother and two stepbrothers. Mann said her father seemed "like a stranger" when they were reunited. The kidnapping gave Mann post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety around travelling later in life. She did not see her mother again until she was 14. She forgave her decades later, saying her mother had been "trapped on every side". Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, and attended Midlothian High School in Chesterfield County. She was withdrawn and would not talk, and her father and stepmother sent her to a psychiatrist. Her drama teacher recalled her as "kind of an insecure kid, very quiet, very introspective … When she did start talking, she was worth listening to." Mann learned to play her brother's guitar when she was confined to bed with glandular fever at the age of 12. As a teenager, she enjoyed David Bowie and Iggy Pop and was inspired by punk and new wave music. She said: "[It] was so interesting, so inventive – literally do whatever you want. That Patti Smith was out there and people were accepting her? Oh my God, there's a way out." In 1978, feeling she did not fit in the "normal world", Mann enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston to study bass guitar. She had wanted to learn the bass as a child, but her family ridiculed her, saying it was unladylike. After 18 months, she dropped out and joined the Boston punk band the Young Snakes on bass. She was unhappy in the band, saying the other members objected to her writing love songs or music they considered too melodic. She joined the band Ministry, which she said helped her learn to write songs efficiently. In the early 1980s, she worked at Newbury Comics in Massachusetts. Career 1980s: 'Til Tuesday At Berklee, Mann and Michael Hausman formed a new wave band, 'Til Tuesday, with Mann providing bass and vocals. They signed to Epic Records and released Voices Carry, their debut album, in 1985. The single "Voices Carry" reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and won that year's MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. According to Mann, "Voices Carry" was one of the first songs she wrote. Stereogum described it as "an early indicator of Mann's penchant for character study, drawing outside the lines of boy-meets-girl love songs". The success made Mann an early female MTV star. The Washington Post described her as "a neo-punk pop princess, a new wave glamour girl, all doe eyes, gangly limbs and spiky bleached hair with that long, braided tail snaking out from underneath". 'Til Tuesday released Welcome Home, their second album, in 1986. Mann sang vocals with Geddy Lee on the 1987 single "Time Stand Still" by Rush, and appeared in the music video. 'Til Tuesday released their third and final album, Everything's Different Now, in 1988. It demonstrated a significant development in Mann's songwriting but was a commercial failure. Mann said it had been abandoned by Epic following a change of staff. 'Til Tuesday broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career. She said later that her musical interests had changed, and that she was more interested in "acoustic guitar music" than the new wave pop of 'Til Tuesday. Hausman, her former boyfriend, became her manager. Epic did not release Mann from her record contract for another three years, which prevented her from releasing new material. It was the first of several disputes Mann had with record labels, which Hausman said had a lasting effect on her attitude to the music industry. 1990–1995: Solo beginnings, Whatever and I'm with Stupid Mann recorded her first solo albums with the producer Jon Brion, who had been a member of the 'Til Tuesday touring band. Mann found working with Brion exciting and felt her songwriting improved with him. Together, they developed a sound that the Stereogum writer Doug Bleggi called "LA alternative". Mann's debut solo album, Whatever, was released in 1993 on the independent label Imago. It earned positive reviews but did not meet sales expectations. In 1994, Mann moved to Los Angeles. She also toured as part of the British band Squeeze, playing her own songs and songs by Squeeze. After Mann finished her second album, I'm with Stupid, Imago encountered financial problems and delayed its release. Imago eventually sold it to Geffen, which signed Mann in 1994 and released I'm with Stupid in 1995. According to Pitchfork, while Mann's solo albums demonstrated she was "a witty, self-possessed songwriter", she was still failing to meet commercial expectations, with sales in the low six figures. Mann began to be seen as a relic of the 1980s. Dick Wingate, the executive who signed 'Til Tuesday to Epic, described Mann as "the model of an artist who has been chewed up and spit out.... Discover the Every Mann popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Every Mann books.