Aimee Mann Takes Aim at Bad Boyfriends & Music Execs in “It Takes All Kinds”

You’d like to think talent will eventually win out, even though it sometimes doesn’t. Thankfully, it did for Aimee Mann, who overcame quasi-one hit wonder status and music industry mistreatment to become one of the finest singer/songwriters of her or any era, delivering subtly devastating masterworks like “It Takes All Kinds.”

The song is one of many on her wonderful 2000 album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dido that can be heard as a romantic lament, but also seems to touch on her squabbles with record executives. No matter how you interpret this song, it’s a stunner.

Aimee Mann came to prominence in the ’80s as the lead singer of the Boston band ‘Til Tuesday, which came smashing onto the scene in 1985 with their Top-10 debut single “Voices Carry.” The band might be called a quasi-one hit wonder because they scored another Top-40 hit in 1986 with “What About Love,” but split up by the end of the decade.

Mann then spent the ’90s constructing her career as a singer/songwriter, with each new release building on the momentum of the last in terms of critical acclaim. In 1999, she was preparing to make a dual splash by writing songs for the new movie by director Paul Thomas Anderson and putting together material for a new studio album.

At around that time, however, Mann’s record label (Geffen) was swallowed by Interscope Records, and the new regime didn’t see any commercial potential in the new songs she was writing. Mann told American Songwriter about the meeting she had with Interscope execs that sealed the deal for her about her future:

“I remember, in that same meeting, Sheryl Crow had just sold something like a million and a half records of whatever her latest record was, and they talked about it like it was this huge failure. I was like, ‘This is not the place for me.’ It was crazy. And they said, ‘Look, we got a lot of bands coming in and if you want to leave, we’ll let you leave.’ And I was like, ‘Let’s go.’ When I had the opportunity to get out of the major-label system, I just could not wait. I could not have gotten out of there fast enough.”

Mann created her own label to distribute Bachelor No. 2. Interest in her work spiked when Anderson’s film Magnolia prominently featured her songs. The album came out to rave reviews in 2000, and many noted how songs like “It Takes All Kinds” seemed to reference her record company misadventures, while also resonating with those who had no idea what she’d been through.

Musically, “It Takes All Kinds” features a sensuous, lilting melody, which makes sense when you consider one of the lyrical references: I would like to keep this vision of you intact / When we’d hang around and listen to Bacharach. The Burt Bacharach influence is driven home by the dreamy countermelody Mann sings in between lines.

Lyrically, there’s certainly no overt tie-ins to record companies or their decision-makers. But the lingering sense of disappointment that hangs over the song’s portrait of a former friend whose priorities have changed is unmistakable. That’s where the title, which hints at an old saying that suggests the world comprises many types of people, good and bad, comes into play.

Mann’s penchant for deft wordplay and rhyming shines: Wearing hubris like a medal you revel in / And it’s me at whom you’ll level your javelin. The narrator chastises herself for not seeing her letdown coming: I was just one in a million of also-rans / Who was sure to be your victim of circumstance. But most of the song is given over to lamenting how her former dear friend has turned out: Who would have guessed that you’d become what you hated.

In some ways, her heartbreak at this turn of events registers an even deeper sting than if she’d let loose with a series of insults. It doesn’t matter if it’s about a thoughtless ex or an A&R man lacking foresight. What matters about “It Takes All Kinds” is the emotional heft behind Aimee Mann’s elastic verbiage.

Photo by Andrew Gombert/EPA/Shutterstock

Source: Billboard, American Songwriter