Aimee Mann: Lost In Space : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Aimee Mann has been on a roll for the past couple of years. After writing some of the best songs of her career for the Magnolia soundtrack in 1999, she immediately followed up with Bachelor No. 2, a set of seductively melodic, confessional folk rock and pop that matched Magnolia's cool intimacy. Finally, this long-overlooked singer-songwriter was getting the attention she deserved. Which makes the ho-hum Lost in Space that much more disappointing.

As clever and literate as Mann can be, she backslides into cliche on several of these songs, including the listless opener, "Humpty Dumpty" (guess who can't put baby back together again?), and the spacey folk of "The Moth" (yes, it gets too close to the flame). The tempos and melodies drag throughout; it's as though we've heard Mann sing these songs before, only here her understated passion comes off more like overstated indifference.

She pulls off a few zingers: Mann's taut vocals and casual sarcasm in the title track ride a nice psychedelic-pop groove, and her ode to obsession, "This Is How It Goes," gently shrugs with resignation. What the album lacks is the desperate, low-key kick of Magnolia's "Save Me" or the elegantly inventive, anthemic pop therapy of an "I Should've Known." Lost in Space isn't a total wash, but it doesn't even approach Mann's best work.

MARK KEMP
(RS 905 - Sept. 19, 2002)