Tag: aimee mann

Music Supervisors Pick Their Favourite TV Syncs of 2018 So Far (Part 1) – Synchblog by Synchtank

Garrett McElver, SuperMusicVision (The Tick, Seal Team)

Show: American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace – Music Supervised by Amanda Krieg Thomas

Episode 4 – ‘House By The Lake’

Song: “Drive” – The Cars (on-camera performance by Aimee Mann)

“Drive” comes about midway through the season, and as a viewer we’re just so traumatized by everything that’s happened (and what we know will happen soon) that this music moment really cuts through. It’s a great showcase of the collaboration between the writers, director, executive producers, music supervisor, and Aimee Mann herself, as they’re all accomplishing a lot with a big featured song moment with an on-camera performance. We feel so helpless for the character David as he’s essentially been kidnapped by his murderous ex-lover Andrew. David’s whole life has crashed down around him, and we know there’s really no way out for him. As Andrew and David stop in a local bar during their escape out of town, we see the incredible Aimee Mann as the evening’s anonymous performer, and she begins to play a rendition of the song made famous by The Cars. David considers escaping through the bathroom window but ultimately does not, in fear of not making it very far and because Andrew’s manipulative reasoning for staying has gotten to him.

While Andrew sits at the table watching this performance by himself, we get to witness one of the very few honest human emotions from Andrew as he breaks into tears. So much of Andrew’s story showcases how manipulative and fake he is, but in this moment, something comes out. I love that this song can really resonate with both characters in this moment. Lyrically applying to David feeling lost and trapped in this situation with no literal or emotional escape. Who is going to be there for him? Who will drive him home? And also with Andrew, who we can tell thinks he’s in the right, feeling alone in his own regard. He feels he’s lost David. Andrew has put himself into this situation where murdering those in his way is the only conceivable choice left in his mind. Who’s gonna pay attention to his dreams? Who’s gonna drive him home? Seemingly no one, as he feels woefully under appreciated by the world around him. He cries at the bar, but we know these are not tears of a lesson learned, it’s fuel for his continued spree to come. Aimee Mann’s performance captures this sense of loss and dread so beautifully and hauntingly. It’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating, it’s unfair. It’s a great scene.

Music Supervisors Pick Their Favourite TV Syncs of 2018 So Far (Part 1) – Synchblog by Synchtank

The Best Covers of The Cars

As we noted earlier this year, Aimee Mann—like the members of the Cars, a onetime Bostonian—turned in an arrestingly spare version of  “Drive” for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, giving the song a poignancy and directness only suggested by the original.

The Best Covers of The Cars

Aimee Mann Strips Back The Cars’ “Drive” on New Cover – Cover Me

The music gods are off to a good start for 2018. Aimee Mann wins a Grammy. The Cars get voted into the Rock Hall of Fame. And, combining the two, Mann has covered one of the Cars’ biggest hits: “Drive.”

The Cars recorded “Drive” for 1984’s Heartbeat City, the Mutt Lange-produced album that marked the height of the band’s commercial success. “Drive” is a beautiful soft-rock ballad that was accompanied by a heavy rotation MTV video. Remember Paulina Porizkova crying while marking on the wall?

Mann recorded her cover for the television series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (she also appears in an episode performing “Drive” in a bar). Mann has covered other songs before for tributes or a movie, and most of those efforts only get traction with her loyal fan base. Her take on Three Dog Night’s “One” (a cover of a cover) has broken out wider; she still performs it often on tour.

So what would you expect from a singer-songwriter that covers a dreamy synth song from the 1980s? An acoustic guitar ballad? Ding, ding, ding. Aimee’s stripped-down playing and her unique voice accentuate the melancholy in “Drive.” This simple music plays to Aimee’s strength, and she does not disappoint. The Cars’ original version holds up today 34 years later, so there is a slim chance of improving this classic with a poppy overproduced version; thankfully she went in a different direction.

Give Aimee Mann’s acoustic cover of “Drive” a listen and sing along like you just lost your true love at the school dance.

Aimee Mann Strips Back The Cars’ “Drive” on New Cover – Cover Me

This Musician’s ‘Assassination Of Gianni Versace’ Cameo Is So Haunting

American Crime Story has been jumping timeframes and locations to tell the full story of The Assassination Of Gianni Versace (executive producer: Alexis Martin Woodall). So while Gianni Versace is nowhere to be found in the Feb. 7 episode, “House By The Lake,” Andrew Cunanan’s alleged first victims in his cross-country spree are. Spoilers follow. After murdering Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock), Darren Criss’ Cunanan goes on the run in Minnesota with architect David Madson (Cody Fern). As Madson considers fleeing out of a bar’s bathroom window, Cunanan takes in a performance by a singer with an acoustic guitar. If you thought the singer looked familiar, there’s a good reason for that. Because it’s Aimee Mann in American Crime Story doing this low-key and slightly surreal cameo.

The Assassination Of Gianni Versace (film editor: Shelly Westerman) primarily takes place in 1997 and in real life, Mann was already an established musicianat that time. Her career started off with the band ‘Til Tuesday in the ’80s and in the ’90s, she was releasing solo music. By the year 2000, Mann had already released three albums as a solo artist and was nominated for an Academy Award for her music in the film Magnolia. But in American Crime Story’s version of events in 1997, Mann is just a lone cover singer in a Minnesotan dive bar off the highway.

Although American Crime Story Season 2 started in Miami Beach, Florida, the setting of Minnesota is important to “House By The Lake.” It is desolate by the rural lake where Cunanan kills his former lover Madson at the end of the episode — far different than the vibrant city of Miami Beach where Versace lived. And Mann’s performance of The Cars’ “Drive” drives that point home.

Yet, the focus isn’t on the special guest star for the scene. Instead, the camera mostly stays on Darren Criss to show how Cunanan is emotionally impacted by the singer. Trail and Madson, respectively, are the “best friend” and “love of my life” that Cunanan told Ronnie about in Episode 2. (These descriptions also match how TIME reported on Cunanan’s relationship with the two men.) Unlike other alleged victims Versace, Lee Miglin, and William Reese, Madson and Trail were a significant part of Cunanan’s personal life. So is it any wonder that he gets emotional when he hears Mann sing, “You can’t go on/Thinking nothing’s wrong, ohh no/Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?”

While the lyrics are moving, there’s actually a far more fascinating connection between “Drive” and The Assassination Of Gianni Versace. Model Paulina Porizkova, who’d go on to marry The Cars’ lead singer, is featured in the 1984 music video for the song. According to New York Magazine, Porizkova was the face of Versace four years later in 1988. It’s a point of contention if Cunanan had even ever met Versace, but the model in the “Drive” music video truly did know the fashion designer.

As for if Mann had any sort of relationship with Versace, that doesn’t appear to be the case. And while Mann has never collaborated with Ryan Murphy before, she’s no stranger to TV and film. Her voice appears on a number of soundtracks, but she has also appeared in projects ranging from The Big Lebowski, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Portlandia. She even showed up on Comedy Central’s Corporate as the well-balanced Peg Peterson just two weeks before singing on American Crime Story.

It’s most likely that American Crime Story recruited Mann because she’s an acclaimed singer-songwriter. But the one connection she does have to “House By The Lake” is the setting. Although Mann isn’t from Minnesota, her sister, Gretchen Seichrist, is based in Minneapolis. The Star Tribune reported that Mann performed with her sister in the Minnesotan city in 2010. Yet, Mann’s unnamed bar singer in American Crime Story isn’t in Minneapolis, the city highlighted at the beginning of “House On The Lake.” Instead, she performs closer to where Madson’s body would be found.

As The New York Times reported, Madson was discovered at East Rush Lake in Chisago County on Saturday, May 3 — nearly a week after Trail was killed. The lake in Rush, Minnesota, is only approximately 60 miles away from Minneapolis, according to Google Maps. But its isolated location makes it feel likes it’s further away from civilization. And while Mann’s solo singer at a lonely bar highlights that isolation, her performance also simultaneously conveys a feeling of being trapped. Because even when he has the chance to escape, Madson is still ensnared by Cunanan.

Mann’s cameo in American Crime Story was less Stevie Nicks in American Horror Story and more bar singer in True Detective Season 2. Her identity doesn’t necessarily matter to the plot because what’s important are the emotions she brings up for Cunanan and the viewers. As the final moments of “House On The Lake” blur the line between fantasy and reality, Mann’s dream-like performance manages to have the same effect. And her beautifully painful rendition of “Drive” will haunt you long after the episode.

This Musician’s ‘Assassination Of Gianni Versace’ Cameo Is So Haunting

American Crime Story: The Truth Behind that Surprising Musical Cameo

There has been a lot of talk during this season of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story about what is fact and what is fiction. The source material, Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors, was meticulously researched—but there are still gaps in the story of Andrew Cunanan, as well as areas in which the show’s creators took some artistic liberty (such as the fantastical onstage conversation between Cunanan and Gianni Versace in Episode 1).

But of all the tales American Crime Story has to tell this season, the six days Cunanan and David Madson spent on the road required the most artistic invention. With both men dead, neither Orth nor anyone else could uncover what, precisely, occurred during that harrowing trip from Madson’s Minneapolis loft to his final resting place. Wednesday’s episode, “House by the Lake,” leans into that challenge by delivering the most surreal installment of the series—punctuated, midway through, by the appearance of singer Aimee Mann. Film lovers may recognize her most immediately from her soundtrack work on 1999’s Magnolia, while music lovers know from her solo career and as lead singer of the 80s band ‘Til Tuesday. Here, though, Mann appears in a Minnesota dive bar, crooning out a classic 1984 hit from the Cars: “Drive.” In what is, writer Tom Rob Smith tells Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast, the most pivotal moment of the episode, Madson tries to escape out of a bathroom window as Cunanan listens, emotionally, to Mann croon. Producers Brad Simpson and Alexis Martin Woodall spoke with Vanity Fair about how Mann’s unsettling musical homage to David Lynch came about.

Vanity Fair: Where did the idea to include Aimee in this episode come from?

Brad Simpson: During the development, one of the things that [writer and executive producer] Tom [Rob Smith] and I talked about—because we had been watching some David Lynch stuff—is the use of music Lynch’s movies, and how well he uses pop music. Tom said, “I think I’m gonna try something like that for the show.” He’d come up with this idea that [Andrew and David] would stop at a roadside bar, and there would be somebody singing—a sort of woman who had a great voice. There was a backstory to her. Maybe she thought she could make it out of this area of this town, but life didn’t work out, and she’s got this sort of weathered, great voice and is stuck there.

We talked about who we could get to play this. Somebody who was first known in the 1980s, who had a strong voice and you could buy as somebody who would live in this landscape. When we went to Ryan [Murphy] for suggestions of who could it be, he instantly said, without a beat: “Aimee Mann. Send her the pages, tell her we’re gonna figure out the song, but it has to be her.”

Alexis Martin Woodall: Brad and I started brainstorming music … we knew we wanted it to be something that was very familiar, but that you hadn’t heard of in a while—so you could emotionally connect with it, but it felt fresh. I got really stuck on one that I was so excited about, [by] Phil Collins. [Aimee] called and said, “Look, I think this song is beautiful, but I don’t think that I’m gonna do justice to this song.” So she’d come back with “Drive,” and it was really funny, because Ryan has loved that song, Brad loves that song—

Simpson: It was a mix tape staple for me.

Woodall: So she recorded a demo for us and sent it our way, and I think right then Brad and I got really excited. Because a demo from Aimee Mann is a little piece of musical genius.

Simpson: I was the guy—I was the ‘Til Tuesday fan in high school.

Woodall: If you’d seen his haircut, you’d really know he was a ‘Til Tuesday fan. Brad and I went out with her producer Paul Bryan—who is a genius, and I don’t use that word lightly—to his studio on a Saturday morning. We all talked about what the goal was, which was that we play it under. It’s not a star turn. We don’t turn the light on and say: “Ladies and gentleman, Miss Aimee Mann!” We just let the actual atmosphere take over, and then you get that there’s someone really legit on stage. Within two hours, we had something that you and I were just kind of flawlessly excited about, right? It was fast.

Simpson: In that scene, David is reconciling himself to the fact that he’s trapped with Andrew, and Andrew has a moment where he thinks he has lost [David]… . The song itself, once you hear the lyrics—hopefully not in an on-the-nose way— the lyrics to “Drive” can really have that double meaning.

Yeah—the lyrics “you can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong” seem pretty appropriate here. I wanted to ask for your take on what Darren Criss is giving in that scene as he listens to the song. We see Andrew overwhelmed by emotion—what emotion do you think that is?

Simpson: When Tom was writing it, I think he wanted to have two things going on. It’s a turning point in the episode. For David, he’s looking out the window of the bathroom and realizing that he’s trapped with Andrew. Maybe he could climb through the window and maybe he couldn’t, but he returns to Andrew. One of the things that’s happening for Andrew in that scene—and it’s one of the few times so far that we’ve seen any real emotion—the way Dan Minahan directed [Darren] to play it, and the way that Tom had written it, was the idea of: you’re watching the singer, David’s gone to the bathroom, and you’re feeling this sense of loss. You think he may have escaped. But either way, there’s an undercurrent of dread that you may have lost him no matter what. Darren wanted to get psyched up and do it in one take—you know, the slow push in that ends with him crying. And we gave him the space that he needed, and just did the long, slow push into the tear, and then he follows up with such joy.

This episode, which happens to be my favorite of the season, has these great surreal qualities, invoking shows like Twin Peaks or The Leftovers. I think the presence of someone as famous as Aimee Mann—even though she’s playing a character—in a random Minnesota dive bar really delivers a disorienting shock.

Simpson: And that is the David Lynch. When we were developing [the season], we talked about different episodes in terms of movies… . There’s a later episode which has nods to American Gigolo. David Lynch had made Wild at Heart, he made The Straight Story, he’s made movies about people moving across the country, he’s made movies about people who exist in the margins… . We talked about the way Lynch used Julee Cruise for the songs in Twin Peaks, the way that he used Roy Orbison in Blue Velvet, and the idea was to reconfigure a pop song much in the same way Lynch does… . We love Aimee Mann, but I think obviously there’s gonna be a whole group of people [unfamiliar with her] for whom it’s just, “Oh my God, that’s somebody with a beautiful voice.”

Woodall: Yeah. Totally anonymous.

You’re right. Not everyone is going to expect frogs to come falling out of the sky when Aimee Mann starts singing. Between this moment and “Pump up the Jam,” this is a great episode for music.

Woodall: I’ve always said that Andrew Cunanan’s favorite songs on shuffle is what we’re doing in the series. He would’ve been 15 in 1984, and there was a really cool darkness in that time period in the New Wave… . What would he have been listening to? What was popular when he fell in love with David? What was popular when he met Versace?

American Crime Story: The Truth Behind that Surprising Musical Cameo