Aimee Mann: One More Drifter In The Snow

With the holiday season approaching and encroaching upon us, you would think that I would have better things to do than to sit around and write album reviews. (Judging by my recent output, which has been minimal, you’d be right in that assumption.) But I like to take a breather every now and then, to sit back, relax, and listen to some holiday music to cheer myself right on up.

The urge to tune to B 104.5 – which inundates the Philadelphia area with saccharine-sweet renditions of ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, and, horror of all horrors, ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ the week of Thanksgiving, and pummels the eardrums and the delicate human psyche for eight solid weeks until the bruised and battered listener is begging for mercy – has never been all that strong with me, but I like to listen to some sort of Christmas music around this time of year, and often go out of my way to find some more off the wall music.

Perhaps the best time to listen to a Christmas album is when it’s snowing, and as I drove 90 minutes to a destination that should normally take only half that time, I was amused by the juxtaposition that unfolded before me: Aimee Mann’s One More Drifter In The Snow was the ideal mood setter for the peaceful serenity of the snow falling hard and fast, and would have been perfect for curling up on the couch with a loved one, enjoying the elements from behind a thick pane of glass, perhaps a crackling fire nearby, mugs of cocoa in hand … yet I was undertaking a white knuckle ride on unplowed roads that consisted entirely of sharp hills and hairpin turns. My concentration was on other things – namely, not dying, as I was informed that my friend would be “very cross with me” if I did so – but this gentle ode to the holidays served as a calming soundtrack to a nightmarish crawl that helped brighten my mood and make the ride bearable.

I find a lot of Christmas music to be maudlin and bland, which may be very Ebeneezer Scrooge of me, but it’s true: having grown up listening to my dad’s 4-disc Time Life collection of Christmas music, with the standards being crooned by some of the most famous and respected musicians of our time, I felt like it had all become predictable. Even the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was stale to me, but I credit that to my decreasing fascination of prog-rock; I needed something to kickstart the holiday season and not leave me a cynical bastard. (A Grinch, if you will.) One More Drifter is that album: it’s a delightful blend of her silky-smooth voice set to a gentler musical accompaniment, and while I hesitate to use the terminology “easy listening”, for that’s become synonymous with the likes of Barry Manilow and Kenny G, One More Drifter is more of a mood piece, suitable for background noise on Christmas morning while unwrapping presents, than something that can be played alongside the remainder of Mann’s catalog and expect to stand up as a meaningful artistic statement. (It’s my belief that no artist should ever have a Christmas album be a meaningful artistic statement. In fact, my first reaction to finding One More Drifter was, “Oh no, now even Aimee Mann has released a holiday album? Is there no decency left in this world?”)

For the sake of brevity – which, yes, is moot this far into the review – I’ll forgo reviewing the actual songs, except for the two original compositions: Mann’s husband, Michael Penn, contributed the jangly and sprightly ‘Christmastime’, rife with mandolin, banjo, and upright bass, and the Penn/Mann cowrite ‘Calling On Mary’ is a delicate, piano-based ballad thanking the Virgin Mary for her son (and giving the album its title). These two sit alongside other standards as ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’, ‘Winter Wonderland’, and ‘The Christmas Song’ (for years I was under the impression this was actually titled ‘Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire’) remarkably well, but it’s the vaudevillian approach to ‘You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch’, with narration by Grant-Lee Phillips – no match for Thurl Ravenscroft, but he certainly gives it his best. Mann’s no slouch either, turning in a sleazy and seductive delivery that’s a nice departure from the otherwise dulcet performance elsewhere.

And that, faithful readers, will be my final album review of 2009. Whatever you celebrate (to paraphrase Clark Griswold), have the hap-hap-happiest holidays since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin’ Kaye – oh, and don’t shoot your eye out. See you all in 2010. Feliz Navidad, and Happy New Year!