Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo is the third album by the American singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, released on May 2, 2000. Mann's record label, Geffen Records, refused to release it, feeling it contained no hit singles; in response, Mann set up her own label, SuperEgo, and released it herself. It sold 270,000 copies, a large number for an independent artist, and received acclaim. Some songs were previously released on the Magnolia soundtrack (1999). Background Aimee Mann recorded her first two solo albums, Whatever (1993) and I'm With Stupid (1995), under contract to Imago Records. When Imago encountered financial problems, they sold the albums to Geffen Records. According to Pitchfork, Mann's first two albums showed that she was "a witty, self-possessed songwriter", but they did not meet sales expectations, with sales "in the low six figures". Mann began to be seen as someone whose career was in decline. She received wider recognition after she contributed songs to the soundtrack for the 1999 film Magnolia, including some songs later included on Bachelor No. 2. Writing Mann's frustration with Geffen inspired many of the songs on Bachelor No. 2. She described playing her new songs to Geffen staff, who would complain that they did not sound like commercial singles. She said: "You just feel like you're failing all the time. The upshot of that is that I started to be unable to write because their reaction made me feel like I wasn't good enough, and so I just started to have a lot of writer's block ... I think the only way to deal with that kind of situation is just to write about what you’re feeling." She wrote "Nothing is Good Enough" in response. Mann took more control over the production of Bachelor No. 2 than she had for her previous albums. She collaborated again with the multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, and said: "It’s very easy to just sit back and let Jon go. So this was the only record that I really took responsibility for all the music: all the parts that were played, the way everything sounded." The dodo of the album title reflected Mann's sense that singer-songwriters were a "dying breed" in 2000. Release Geffen refused to release Bachelor No. 2, feeling it contained no hit singles. In response, Mann sold homemade EPs of her music on tour, a move she described as a "DIY fuck-you-record-company-I'm-selling-it-myself"