Mann has gotten a lot of critical acclaim for her solo career, though her sales haven't been as great as they should be. However, a lot of people forget that she started out as the lead singer and main songwriter for the new wave band 'Til Tuesday back in the 1980s. I plan on posting a lot of albums of Mann's solo stuff. But I think before I do that, it makes sense to cover her 'Til Tuesday work.
Personally, I think 'Til Tuesday was very hit or miss. Sometimes, they came up with great songs, like their big hit "Voices Carry." Another example would be "Coming Up Close," which I'd consider one of the top five songs of Mann's entire career. "The Other End (Of the Telescope)," a song cowriten by Mann and Elvis Costello, is great too. But too often, the songs were just ordinary, and were marred by dated 1980s production values. So I've compiled my own 'Til Tuesday "best of" for people who don't want to own all three of their albums. There have been several official best ofs, but those have included some songs I don't like and left off some songs I do like.
In my opinion, Mann was still learning how to write and produce consistently excellent songs in her 'Til Tuesday years. This can be seen by the drastic improvement from the band's first album to their third one. The first album has the classic "Voices Carry" and not much else, while the third album has lots of good songs. So nearly half of this compilation comes from the third album.
It turns out 'Til Tuesday has lots of unreleased songs, at least an album's worth. I've listened to a bunch, and while they were as good as many of the songs on their albums, they didn't really stand out enough for me to include them here. But I did find one I like which I've included, called "Tension." If you want to hear more of their unreleased stuff, check out the band's live concerts on YouTube.
One song here, "Sign of Love," is credited to just Aimee Mann. But I think that's a mere technicality, since it was played in concert by 'Til Tuesday at the time, and sounds just like their other songs.
01 Love in a Vacuum [Demo] ('Til Tuesday)
02 Tension ('Til Tuesday)
03 Voices Carry ('Til Tuesday)
04 Coming Up Close ('Til Tuesday)
05 Have Mercy ('Til Tuesday)
06 What about Love ('Til Tuesday)
07 Yesterday ('Til Tuesday)
08 Do It Again ('Til Tuesday)
09 Sign of Love (Aimee Mann)
10 Everything's Different Now ('Til Tuesday)
11 Why Must I ('Til Tuesday)
12 J for Jules ('Til Tuesday)
13 [Believed You Were] Lucky ('Til Tuesday)
14 Limits to Love ('Til Tuesday)
15 The Other End [Of the Telescope] ('Til Tuesday)
https://www.upload.ee/files/16687552/AIMEMNN1984-1988_BestofTilTuesdy_atse.zip.html
I made the cover art using a publicity photo of Aimee Mann from her 'Til Tuesday era.
