Aimee Mann - Baby Blue - Non-Album Tracks (1992-1996)

Now that I posted an album of Aimee Mann singing for 'Til Tuesday, I can get started on her solo career.  Personally, I think she's both a great singer and a great songwriter. She's consistently put out quality material for her entire solo career, But I especially like her 1990s output.

One reason I think her 1990s era was so good was because she had a few "lost years" during one of her most creative time periods. She put out 'Til Tuesday albums in 1985, 1986, and 1988. Their last album, "Everything's Different Now," was their best in my opinion, because it showed Mann was growing by leaps and bounds as a songwriter. But then the band broke up, and Mann had a hard time getting a good record contract to begin her solo career. (She continued to tour under the band's name for two more years.)

It wasn't until 1993 that her first solo album, "Whatever," finally came out. So that was a gap of about five years since her last album. That gave her a backlog of songs to choose from. I'm sure many, if not most, of the songs here were written during that gap, even if they were recorded later. There are probably still more that remain unreleased and unbootlegged, since she had high quality control and almost nothing has been bootlegged from that time period.

So I consider this album a "lost album," even though it's mostly B-sides. The vast majority of songs here are Mann originals that didn't get on any of her studio albums. I believe the only covers are "Baby Blue" (originally by Badfinger), "Girls Talk" (originally by Elvis Costello), "Inverness" (originally by Scott Miller of Game Theory,, as well as the Loud Family, who plays the song with her). and "Christmastime." Plus, there's kind of a self-cover, in that she does a version of her 'Til Tuesday hit "Voices Carry," but it's done in a very different way here, making it two and a half minutes longer.

If you like Mann's solo albums, you should definitely enjoy this. It's a mystery to me why she hasn't put these out on proper albums.

By the way, Mann has a habit of recording acoustic versions of her songs, either as B-sides or in concert. I plan on posting more albums of stray tracks from her, as well as a separate series of acoustic versions.

01 Put On Some Speed [Demo] (Aimee Mann)
02 Truth on My Side [Demo] (Aimee Mann)
03 Baby Blue (Aimee Mann)
04 Take It Back (Aimee Mann)
05 Jimmy Hoffa Jokes (Aimee Mann)
06 [Believed You Were] Lucky (Aimee Mann)
07 Will She Just Fall Down (Aimee Mann)
08 Girls Talk (Aimee Mann)
09 Driving with One Hand on the Wheel (Aimee Mann)
10 Inverness (Scott Miller & Aimee Mann)
11 Christmastime (Aimee Mann with Michael Penn)
12 Time for You to Go (Aimee Mann)
13 Voices Carry [Long Version] (Aimee Mann)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687555/AIMEMNN1992-1996_BbyBlue_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a publicity photo of Mann from 1993.