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| @#%& Smilers | 
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| Artist: Aimee Mann
Label: Super Ego
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy Used: £6.74
You Save: £7.25 (52%)
New (40) from £6.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 710
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.3
UPC: 698519002624
EAN: 0698519002624
ASIN: B00171MNKQ
Release Date: June 2, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Excellent condition, only played once
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| Tracks:
| • | Freeway | | • | Stranger Into Starman | | • | Looking For Nothing | | • | Phoenix | | • | Borrowing Time | | • | It's Over | | • | 31 Today | | • | Great Beyond | | • | Medicine Wheel | | • | Columbus Avenue | | • | Little Tornado | | • | True Believer | | • | Ballantines |
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| Similar Items:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk review
Despite that unwieldy, rather craven title (a coy `@#%&!' precedes the title, in lieu of proper swearing), Smilers has already been acclaimed by some critics as the best record in Aimee Mann's long career. Few fans will be disappointed. The opening "Freeway" may be built around a fairly slight play on words ("you got a lot of money but you can't afford the freeway" goes the chorus) but the nagging melody and expansive synth-laden arrangement, reminiscent of her East Coast counterparts and suburban critics Fountains of Wayne, is nigh on irresistible. "Stranger Into Starman" is a mere snippet, and all the better for its brevity, while "Looking For Nothing" is a perfect example of the southern Californian blankness Mann has captured for years now. The lush, orchestrated country-rock of "Phoenix" rhymes the title with `kleenex' and truly captures the mood of someone leaving for good. Sean Hayes sounds uncannily like a boozy Antony Hegarty on the deceptively jolly closer "Ballantines", named for a whisky, while author Dave Eggers picks up a credit for his rather good `whistling' on the gloomy, undeniably pretty "Little Tornado". The painfully detailed "Thirty One Today", a distant memory for Mann, is another successful attempt to voice dissatisfaction. Only the chirpy horns on the admonishing "Borrowing Time" actually lighten the mood. Smilers is an excellent record, cleverly thought out throughout. But the smiles here are rueful at best.—Steve Jelbert
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 not quite up to scratch July 17, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Aimee, Aimee, Aimee. What can I say? I have been a longtime fan of Aimee Mann. At her best she is a writer of beautiful songs charting the ups and downs (often the downs!) of love and life. However, something seems to have gone wrong with the current album, I'm sad to say.
Unlike many, I was a big fan of The Forgotten Arm, Mann's previous record. Dismissed by most critics purely on the grounds of its `concept', it was a set of strong songs and at least a couple good enough to be ranked amongst Aimee's best. Unfortunately, the magic is somehow missing on Smilers. The songs are pretty enough; it's just that after a number of listens, they steadfastly refuse to stand out; not one has lodged itself in my brain (except maybe Borrowing Time, and that's due to its echoes of Green Day's Holiday and Iggy Pop's The Passenger).
This might be the fault of the production. Each song sounds largely the same, and the electric guitar is notable only because of its absence. It's just kind of... inoffensive, and for a songwriter of Mann's quality I'm sorry to have to say it. I very much hope this is a temporary blip, but I can't see @#%&*! Smilers staying on heavy rotation on the ipod for long.
 Another fantastic album from the fantastic Aimee Mann July 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this album, it just consists of beautiful songs after beautiful songs. For anyone who has no other Aimee music, I would say this album would be a fabulous introduction
Amazing Album July 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is truly a must have album for any lover of well written music. Unlike previous albums, there is no theme running through this one which really makes each song carry more clout than individual extracts from albums like lost in space did.
Every song is superbly written as Mann boosts a vocabulary other song writers could only dream of. You know you're listening to a great songstress when you hear 'phoenix' rhymed with 'kleenex' and you don't cringe.
Every song is great in its own unique way though my highlights of the album would be 'Freeway' - the strongest start to an album i've heard for a long time, 31 Today - whose chorus you will seem to know instantly and be singing along with after the first verse, and Borrowing Time - which is just quirky enough to be a true classic.
The album also comes with a beautifully illustrated (in the style of old fashioned, pop-eye like,cartoons,) lyric book.
 quietly confident June 18, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Aimee Mann is one of those artists who quietly produces songs of real quality without really troubling the press or being lauded as the next so-and-so. Even providing the soundtrack for P T Anderson's mammoth movie Magnolia wasn't enough to make her more widely known over in the UK. Even I, who had enjoyed her work, had let her fall off my radar recently, only to find that her latest is another well crafted collection of West Coast melancholia; it's title, with deleted expletive, should make it clear how she feels about those with a sunny disposition (and I'm guessing there's a fair few of those in LA).
The album opens with the familiar sounding Freeway, containing everything you might expect; male backing, a catchy tune and chorus, which makes the next track, Stranger into Starman, a bit of a shock. Just piano and her voice sounding better than ever before a simple arrangement fleshes out this tiny track. Lovely. Mann's voice for those that haven't heard it is like a combination of Karen Carpenter and Chrissie Hynde, deep and rich and surprisingly sweet given the bitter tang to some of her lyrics. A song like Phoenix is a good example, with its lovely string accompaniment even whilst she sings about leaving her lover, telling us 'I know love doesn't change a thing'. 31 Today is another track typical of her outlook ' I thought my life would be different somehow/I thought my life would be better by now/But it's not, and I don't know where to turn'.
It's Over is the album's big number, with a far more optimistic outlook, encouragement to make the most of life, ' cos everything's beautiful, every day's a holiday'. There are some clear musical influences; Borrowing Time, as another reviewer has pointed out, has clear echoes of Iggy Pop's Passenger, Little Tornado is very Simon and Garfunkel and True Believer is imbued with the spirit of Elliot Smith. All in all it makes for very pleasant listening but I'm not sure that this album is going to get her any closer to being a household name on this side of the pond.
All smiles for yet another brilliant recording June 9, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This recording doesn't quite scale the heights of her debut solo recording, Whatever, or her masterwork, Bachelor No.2, but Aimee Mann's Smilers certainly show us why she is the best pop/rock singer/songwriter of the last 15 years. Her uncanny combination of Burt Bacharach and the Byrds melodic sensibilities and her cuttingly wicked and funny lyrics about losers and relationship meltdowns is still stunningly effective. Freeway and 31 Again, both of which she previewed during her 2007 tour are standout mid-tempo tracks, but the extraordinarily beautiful melancholy of Phoenix, Medicine Wheel and Little Tornadoes is the overall impression of this recording. The production is not as edgy as that of The Forgotten Arm and seems to be a return to the more subtle touches of Bachelor No. 2. Not one song is out of place or less than brilliant on this, her sixth solo recording.
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