Aimee Mann has announced her next album. Queens of the Summer Hotel is out November 5 via Mann’s own label SuperEgo. The LP was written in conjunction with music for a stage adaptation of Girl, Interrupted. Today, Mann has shared lead single “Suicide Is Murder,” along with a music video starring James Urbaniak. The visual was directed and produced by Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller. (If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or know someone who is, resources can be found at the bottom of the article.)
In a statement, Mann said she began writing her single because she’s known people who have died by suicide. “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,” she said. “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?’”
Mann added: “I honestly felt almost possessed when I was writing this record as I’ve never written so fast and intensely. 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.”
Mann began writing music for Queens of the Summer Hotel back in 2018 as she penned music for the onstage version of Girl, Interrupted. The new LP consists of a song cycle constructed from that music, sung by Mann and orchestrated with her longtime collaborator Paul Bryan.
Read Pitchfork’s 2020 interview “Aimee Mann on the Music That Made Her.”
Content
Queens of the Summer Hotel:
01 You Fall
02 Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath
03 Give Me Fifteen
04 At the Frick Museum
05 Home by Now
06 Checks
07 Little Chameleon
08 You Don’t Have the Room
09 Suicide Is Murder
10 You Could Have Been a Roosevelt
11 Burn It Out
12 In Mexico
13 Check (Reprise)
14 You’re Lost
15 I See You
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or know someone who is, we recommend these resources:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
1-800-273-TALK (8255)