Sometimes record companies are insane.

Aimee Mann made a name for herself as the lead singer of ‘Til Tuesday, a band who scored a big hit in 1985 with their debut single, “Voices Carry.” With her teased out platinum blonde hair looking like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket, Mann cut a striking figure in the visually-conscious decade, but after five more years in the pop machine without further success — and with her record company throwing up continuous roadblocks — she decided to go solo.

Mann’s first two albums under her own name continued the trend of her previous band’s last couple of albums: critics thought they were great and sales were… modest. Geffen, her new record company, definitely felt underwhelmed, hoping as they were for a return to her mid-80s success. But Mann wore the mantle of the pop princess with discomfort, much more at home with a relaxed, acoustic singer-songwriter vibe, and to that end she took up a solo residency at a small club in Los Angeles called Largo.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson saw her play many times at Largo and loved her songs so much he decided to write an entire movie with those songs in mind. That movie became Magnolia.

One of the songs Mann gave to the soundtrack was titled “Save Me,” which she had written for her then boyfriend, Dave Foley (whom you may remember from such TV shows as The Kids In The Hall and Newsradio), imploring him to save her from becoming one of those people who believe they are too broken to love anyone at all. Released in 1999, “Save Me” was nominated for an Oscar the following year.

You’d think that Mann would have earned quite a bit of credit with her record company at this point. She’d won critical plaudits galore and a huge new audience discovered her music through Magnolia and the Oscar nomination. The soundtrack went gold. But when Mann submitted her new album, Bachelor No. 2, to Interscope (who she’d been assigned to when Geffen was bought out) they rejected it outright. Playing the part of a record company caricature to the hilt, they said they didn’t hear a hit.

Often in this situation, if the artist refuses to make changes, record companies will shelve the album rather than release it. Interscope had so little regard for the record that they let Mann buy the master tapes back. She proceeded to self-release the album and sold a quarter of a million copies, twice her previous album.

She never again signed with a record label.

So get saved from the ranks… with Aimee Mann.