Video - Aimee Mann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACPG9_01srI

This tune comes off Aimee Mann's album The Forgotten Arm, an entire album of her spare, gorgeous folk-pop songs which functions as short stories. She speaks with the voices of characters aching for love and reeling from loss. The entire album tells a complicated tale and deserves to be listened in its entirety, but "Video" is perhaps the brightest gem of the bunch. This is the song that I plucked out for mix CDs and listened to on repeat. There's a propulsive move forward, an intimacy, a sadness. The lyrics are so deft and crisp - "labelled like a bottle for Alice, drink me or I'll drown in a sea of giants." It's a song that moves without ever getting there and that's the story she's telling. The video is equally spare and puts all the focus on Aimee's artistry and that's where we should be looking. It's a subtle piece but still an earworm that can embed itself in your brain and never let go. And that's not a bad thing.