Aimee Mann - I'm With Stupid

Delicious - sweetly, perfectly acerbic, like all of her best work. Mann's second solo lp, it's a big step forward from Whatever, if not in the same league as Bachelor No 2; compared to Lost In Space, it seems less fully realised but is, I think, probably the better record. Most of I'm With Stupid is made up of the sophisticated mid-tempo pop songs that are Mann's primary stock in trade, but, as usual, she pulls off the mournful ballads ("Par For The Course" is lovely and amazing) and the upbeat power-pop numbers (I must've listened to "Superball" about ten times consecutively while walking around the city today) equally adeptly...appetite now well and truly whetted for the new album, assuming it ever actually hits local shores.