"Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing each other again?" Writer/ director Paul Thomas Anderson credits the entirety of his latest film, "Magnolia," to this line without hesitation. That it comes as the opening to "Deathly," the centerpiece of a collection of new Aimee Mann songs serving as the movie's soundtrack, causes him not an ounce of shame. He heaps high praise on Mann in his liner notes to the album, saying, "You are convinced that you have either a) heard it before, b) said it before, or even c) thought of it before..."

Reading this, I immediately recalled my similar first impressions of "The Other End of the Telescope," an early 90's Mann collaboration with Elvis Costello. In particular, I thought of the line, "We won't even recall that we spoke/ Words that turned out to be as big as smoke." It so perfectly captured the fading relevance of an ex-girlfriend long pined after. In my mind, I had always credited it to Costello, but after hearing Mann's work on this soundtrack, I'm less sure of that. While flourishing Beatles-esque treatments, provided by both Jon Brion and husband Michael Penn, make Costello's ghost hard to shake here, the lasting impressions are left by Mann's cutting and precise writing, and her sweet, strong voice.

Anderson crystallizes the essence of Mann's work in the questions of "Why the hell would anyone love me?" and "Why would I love anyone when all it means is torture?" And though I hesitate to argue with the creator of "Boogie Nights," it seems to me that these songs more accurately contemplate the pitfalls of the elevating interpersonal love to personal salvation. Songs like "Save Me," and "You Do," and lines like "So do me a favor/ If I should waver/ Be my savior/ And get out the gun," say as much. But while Mann is busy debunking romantic myths, Brion and Penn are fastidiously bolstering others: the resilient guitar solo on "Deathly" is cry of the noble sufferer. Thus, the beautiful complexities of Mann's songs are constructed. Elvis would be jealous.

[Warning to future soundtrack producers: 1.5 points have been deducted from the album's original tally due to the inclusion of two Supertramp "classics."]

-Neil Lieberman