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Thirty years ago, while Aimee Mann was on the cusp of the biggest hit of her mighty career as a member of Til Tuesday with “Voices Carry”, Ted Leo was a Seton Hall prep school kid woodshedding his love for punk and hardcore on the New York City underground scene. Yet while the two artists couldn’t have been more worlds apart, you know damn well the future frontman of such influential groups as Chisel and the Pharmacists kept WPLJ on his car radio driving back home to New Jersey whenever he heard Aimee’s voice on the air. Mann, meanwhile, is undoubtedly cool enough to have had Tyranny of Distance in rotation when she was penning the music for her 2000 solo masterpiece Bachelor No. 2.
Now, as if it was conspired by way of a crowdsourced Kickstarter campaign or some old school magazine contest, two of the most heralded singer-songwriters of the aughties have combined forces to form this group they are calling The Both (formerly known as #Both, a nod to the pair’s correspondence over Twitter following a joint tour they did a year or so ago that led to them working together).
And it warms the soul to report that this collaboration not only lives up to but exceeds the expectations set forth by this tinderbox union. Original tunes like “The Gambler”, “Volunteers of America” and “Hummingbird” derived Mann and Leo bouncing ideas, melodies and lyrics between the two of them via long distance correspondence until they came up with the perfect balance of each other’s distinct styles of songcraft. Meanwhile, an outstanding cover of “Honesty Is No Excuse” from the first Thin Lizzy album shows just how much they are on the same page, sonically.
Here’s hoping The Both isn’t just a one-off for this talented tandem
