I am revisiting "Whatever" after an absence of several years and am appreciating it in a new light. This is, for me, without question, easily Aimee Mann's finest hour.
The quality of the songwriting is exemplary,the variety of music astounding, the performances and the production timeless and superb.
If you discovered Mann more recently, don't bother getting anything else before you own this (then buy Bachelor No2)

this album came out at a particularly strange part of my life. i am a depressed person and see n feel a lot of her pain and anguish about just life. after seeing her in interviews and in concert, why any guy would mistreat this beautiful woman (inside and out) is beyond me. may her future be happier than her past. amen

This solo debut by Aimee is one of her best albums by far; the song "I should've known" is a great introduction, and "4th of July", "Stupid thing", "Say anything", "I've had it", "Mr Harris" and "Could've been anyone" are among the best songs she has ever written. I love this artist, and every album of hers is worth buying!

This was the first thing I knew of Aimee Mann, and I loved it right out of the box. It includes a great range of styles that help show off her creative talent, taste, wit, and beautiful voice.

What do I like about Aimee? Her songs are real, unique and authentic. You can see her through the songs and through her voice - direct, clear, honest and punchy - and that brings me real pleasure. Not to mention that Mann has a wonderful feeling for the melodic line and a unique way of writing lyrics. When I listen to her music I see an interesting, independent, sparky, intelligent, irrepressible woman - in other words, attractive and sexy. Perhaps i am getting old.

Aimee Mann seemed to slowly push the new wave origins of Til Tuesday deeper into arty and moody beauties, with the gorgeousness of Welcome Home recalling Roxy Music's Avalon and then the devastating personal Everything's Different Now chronicling her breakup with Jules Shear with the alacrity of Elvis Costello or Squeeze. (And was essentially a solo album with a little help from her friends.)

As seemed to become standard with Aimee's career, six years of legal problems with Epic over Til Tuesday stalled this album from coming out on Imago till 1993, who then filed for bankruptcy and tied Aimee down until Geffen undid the legal knots and re-released it. That is a good thing, because this is the heaviest rocking that Aimee ever did. As her albums increasingly became musically more complex and introspective, the electricity seeped out from her recordings even as the quality remained impeccable. So you can delight in the wild guitar leads in "I Should Have Known" but hear the sad loss of a friendship via the colors that become more dominant in her career on "4th of July:"

"But now here I am and the world's gotten colder,
and she has the river down which I sold her."

There are also plenty of lyrics that chart Aimee's literary proclivities. After all, how many singers reference Dickens for a song ("Jacob Marley's Chain)? The initial single, "Stupid Thing," was a Beatlesque concoction that derived its downcast shimmer from "Abbey Road." The production throughout this CD is elaborate, with longtime cohort Jon Brion ornately dressing everything here. While Mann did drift towards a more personal style and sound (around the time of Bachelor No. 2), her first round of solo recording is still an album I pull out for pleasures from time to time, and stands up with albums of the period from Crowded House, Elvis Costello and 10,000 Maniacs.

During the extended avalanche of grunge and rap in the 90's, this CD offered a refuge for those who craved great pop music with melody, harmony, and lyrics with substance. Aimee Mann's "Whatever" is a truly remarkable CD featuring 13 tracks of sonic GOLD!

In my opinion, Amiee Mann spent the 80's climbing to this very high point. Her work with "'til tuesday" managed to improve with each release. The 80's were an outstanding decade for pop and rock, but the "new wave" formula often used (and exploited by early 'til tuesday) had to be tossed aside for Aimee to truly shine. The 90's may have been a huge train wreck for the music industry, but Aimee Mann was shining brighter than ever!

One cannot review this CD without mentioning the production by Jon Brion (Aimee's 'til tuesday band mate). Nothing short of amazing!

I purchased this CD on the very day it was released back in the early 90's. It has since become a timeless work of "audio art", one of the few truly GREAT albums of the era.

-JM

a strong and great album, good melodies, good production; a well written and well sung album.

aimee is a wonderful artist.

aimee wrote this album right after disbanding 'til tuesday.

her songs on this cd were supposed to be for a 4th 'til

tuesday album, but the way things went, mann decided to

go solo, and the result is perfect.

Like all Aimee Mann albums, every single song that this one has is a good listen!