Aimee Mann Queens Of The Summer Hotel LP

Aimee Mann started working on a musical based on the 1993 memoir 'Girl, Interrupted' by Susanna Kaysen, about the author's stay in a psychiatric hospital in the late 1960s. When the global COVID-19 pandemic put the project on hold, Aimee ended up going into the studio and recording all the songs for the musical herself. Her 10th studio album, Queens Of The Summer Hotel, is the result. The release is her first since her Grammy-winning 2017 album, Mental Illness.

Mann turns these...tunes into a richly textured record, one that is deep in feeling and controlled in execution....The combination of the airiness of the arrangements and the warmth of Mann's performance is wistfully hopeful, turning Queens of the Summer Hotel into a record that soothes and consoles during moments of uncertainty.

What began as a commission to create a soundtrack for the stage adaptation of the cinematic masterpiece Girl Interrupted evolved into Aimee Mann's striking stand-alone album, Queens of the Summer Hotel, and in fact, one of the most emotive efforts of her career...Songs such as 'In Mexico,' 'Give Me Fifteen' and 'I See You' coast along with a supple sway, suggesting a more sedate scenario than the original screenplay otherwise implies. Consequently, it ranks with the best albums of Mann's nearly 40-year career. Expressive and emotive, it's a work that finds delicacy and diligence operating on equal footing.

It doesn't have the instant-classic pop of some of her earlier material, but as a more somber, measured collection of music, it's a winner. Even on 30-second throwaway transitional snippets like 'Checks,' her signature songcraft is recognizable...It may fall on the more mellow and restrained side of her catalogue, but this is a record to be savored - mining beauty (and yes, some humor) from pain is an Aimee Mann specialty, and this record serves as further testament to that fact. It's been nearly four decades since she founded 'Til Tuesday, but the musician has never sounded more confident.