Aimee Mann
One More Drifter in the Snow
(SuperEgo)
Must there be a sour note on every Christmas album? Apparently. On Aimee Mann’s new holiday hoo-ha it’s her duet with Grant-Lee Phillips, “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch.” A worse rendering of the song I could not conjure. And it’s worse for the fact that the rest of the album is so GD lovely. Mann’s voice is level and solid, as usual. Her arrangements are simple (listen to her take on Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song”). Mann even pulls off what few of her ilk—anyone born after 1950—can: she ends the album with her own original Christmas song. And it’s good. Humming-it-in-line-at-the-bank good. Stupid Dr. Seuss.
—Lezlie Lowe
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
