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First Listen: Aimee Mann, 'Charmer'

Aimee Mann's new album, <em>Charmer</em>, comes out Sept. 18.
Sheryl Nields
/
Courtesy of the artist
Aimee Mann's new album, Charmer, comes out Sept. 18.

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Aimee Mann has spent the last quarter-century examining the downside of human interaction, first with 'Til Tuesday and on through a nearly 20-year string of terrific solo records. Those looking to sum up Mann's worldview in a single sentence could do worse than this line from "Gamma Ray," on the new Charmer: "One thing leads to another, and none of it's good." That's a fine 10-word summation of Mann's emotional palette, which takes her from dour defeat all the way up to wryly jaundiced resignation.

But Mann has never been a mere bummer, and Charmer (her first album in four years, due out Sept. 18) unfurls with a springy zinginess that makes it hard to resist. For all its examination of rejection ("Disappeared"), misplaced loyalty ("Labrador," "Crazytown") and fraudulence ("Living a Lie," in which Mann duets with The Shins' James Mercer), Charmer buzzes and chugs along agreeably. Mann may sing memorably of self-doubt — "Secretly charmers feel like they're frauds," she admits in the album's title track — but her eighth solo record is the work of a sharp, confident veteran who's never strayed far from the top of her game.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)