Tuneful, gentle... beautiful. (Magnolia - Aimee Mann)

Member Name: beedubblyer

Product:	Magnolia - Aimee Mann
Date:	12/07/00 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Aimee Mann's beautiful tunes...

Disadvantages: ... Supertramp's obnoxious nonsense.

One to cherish.

As with the film, the OST opens with 'One', a cover that Aimee Mann recorded for a Nilsson tribute. It's a tender, lonely affair, and it sets the introspective tone for much of the album. While 'Momentum' crashes in with a sassy stomp, the words remain fixedly downbeat. But this isn't a depressing album - it's sweet listening, the plantive lyrics a counterpoint to the delicate music. 'Build That Wall', for example, obviously came out on the midnight train from Harmony Central.

PT Anderson structured 'Magnolia' around his favourite Aimee Mann songs (the material here can mostly be found on her albums proper), and it's the poignant, clever lyric to 'Deathly' that he took as his starting point, working outwards from 'Now that I've met you/Would you object to/Never seeing each other again...' It starts tenderly, and builds into an anthemic swell.

But the standout track on the album has to be the hushed and heartbreaking 'Wise Up', which also plays against a key moment - a magical moment - in the movie. With its precious vocal and almost unbearably sad lyric, the sequence became breathtaking. It's the same listening to the track alone. 'Save Me' is the only other track here that is good enough - and just about optimistic enough - to follow, and so it does.

The Supertramp songs that round the album off, though, are exactly as naff as you'd expect, all sickly Seventies production and dated tunes. Not what you'd call timeless. Now there's a place for good use of a naff old song in a film, and even on a soundtrack, but this ain't it. It's more like a test - if you still want the album despite the inclusion of these two limp offerings, that proves you want it enough.

Now, i must go and find some more Aimee Mann albums.

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