Four-and-a-half years since Aimee Mann released her ninth studio album Mental Illness (2017), the acclaimed singer-songwriter has revealed initial details about its highly anticipated successor. Due in stores November 5th via her SuperEgo Records imprint, Mann’s tenth studio LP Queens Of The Summer Hotel was inspired by her recent compositions crafted for the stage adaptation of Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir that examines her psychiatric hospitalization in the late 1960s.
“I honestly felt almost possessed when I was writing this record as I’ve never written so fast and intensely,” Mann explains in an official statement. “I found the material very interesting and obviously really personal. I had specific ideas about what I thought the character’s backstory could be and incorporated a lot of shared experiences to flesh out specific characters discussed in the memoir.”
The 15-track Queens Of The Summer Hotel is preceded by the poignant, piano-driven and strings-laden lead single “Suicide Is Murder” and its sobering accompanying video starring James Urbaniak.
“I started to write this song because I’ve known people who committed suicide and friends who’ve had loved ones die from suicide,” Mann reflects. “I think the phrase ‘suicide is murder’ took on a meaning for me as it’s the worst thing to have to deal with in the aftermath. It’s just terrible. Because every person who knows the person who committed suicide will blame themselves in some way for not noticing or stepping in or doing something. They’ll till the end of their days, say, ‘was there something I could have done?’”
PRE-ORDER Queens Of The Summer Hotel via Aimee Mann’s Official Store
SEE Aimee Mann with Rufus Wainwright this September | Dates
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