He Wants Me, If Only Part of The Time 4 Out Of 5 Stars
That brilliant line came from Til Tuesday's biggest hit, "Voices Carry," and is likely the song most folks recall the band by. It also launched both the band and their lead singer/songwriter, Aimee Mann. While Mann has since embarked on a critically acclaimed career as a solo singer/songwriter, "Coming Up Close: A Retrospective" both follows the breif, three album arc of Til Tuesday and shows Mann's evolution. "Voices Carry," both the single and first album, was typical of the MTV 80's. Synth and drum heavy, the photogenic Mann quickly struck a chord as the girl in the video to stand up in the opera scene to scream at her creep boyfriend. The songs "Love In A Vacuum" and "Looking Over My Shoulder" (which peaked at 61 on Billboard but oddly is left off this set) followed in the same vein.
While the band was set for a successful follow-up, Mann's songwriting had begun to shift into a more personal direction, as well as losing the funky new-wave style. "Welcome Home" was a great album, but lack of a "Voices Carry" clone lead many to peg the band as one-hit wonders. The stinging "What About Love" did manage to peak at 26, but the song "Coming Up Close," a terrific song about the twilight of a relationship, stalled at 59. There's also a taste of the quirkier points of her solo career with "Will She Just Fall Done," a poppy song about a dysfunctional girlfriend.
The rest of the band was feeling left out by the start of the third album, "Everything's Different Now." Only Mann and Drummer Michael Hausman with session players, it's basically Mann's first solo album and is partially about her breakup with songwriter Jules Shear (who co-wrote the title track). It included a collaboration with Elvis Costello on "The Other End of The Telescope" and Til Tuesday's last charting single, "Believed You Were Lucky" (a censored version, which completely changed the tome of the song) that peaked at 95. "Everything's Different Now" officially embarked Mann on her pop-folk voyage, as well as a legal battle that held up her solo recordings for another seven years.
"Coming Up Close" finishes out with an unreleased track by the original band called "Do It Again," with no other info about its origins. It's a pretty good song, but that was it for any reunions since Mann has been touring and recording steadily since. Overall, since only the debut remains in print, this retrospective is a worthy overview of a band whose output has been long overlooked.
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