Singer/songwriter. It’s a term that screams ‘mediocrity’, that tries – and fails – to think of one redeemable selling point. [a]Tori Amos[/a] might be the kooky, dysfunctional cornflake girl, but [a]Aimee Mann[/a], the soundtracker and, going by the director’s obsequious sleevenotes, inspiration to PT Anderson‘s [I]Magnolia[/I], is a singer/songwriter. No more, no less.
While ‘Momentum’ might try awfully hard, dressing up in ragtime swing and baritone sax, there’s no getting away from the fact that [a]Aimee Mann[/a] is a woman with expensive glasses and acoustic guitar, singing folkily about some men that buggered off some time ago, and aren’t coming back in a hurry.
Bewilderingly, Anderson claims to have built some of his characters around some of the songs found here – but there’s no hint of [I]Magnolia[/I]’s selling point, the leering, cock-proud Frank Mackey, as played by Tom Cruise – or indeed, any sort of characterisation beyond the vague [I]Ally McBeal[/I]-isms of ‘You Do’: “You stay the night at his house with no ride to work/And I’m the one who tells you he’s another jerk”.
There’s a couple of Supertramp songs tacked on the end, for no good reason, but no matter. [a]Aimee Mann[/a] was far from stealing the show; there’s no reason for her to be here for the curtain call.