Mandy Moore

So Real

Spicy girl pop

Review Score:

(6/10)
Amanda Leigh Moore has said that she recalls the moment when, as a 6-year-old "jumping on my bed and singing" in her Orlando home, she decided to chase her pop-music dreams. That epiphany may lack the historical impact of, say, Elvis truckin' to the Sun studios for the first time or Paul catching John's act at a Liverpool church festival. But Mandy, now 15 and a pop pro whose dance hit "Candy" has sold more than 500,000 copies and built a buzz for this debut album, earns credit for perseverance. Another product of the Orlando bubblegum factory that gave us the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, Moore skips along the same sultry but virginal girl-on-the-verge path cleared by Britney Spears. Yet like her idol Madonna, Moore relies on chutzpah to overcome the limitations of a voice that can sound as flimsy as the pop she produces. Still, you may admire the sass of such lines as "I'm not too young to know the right thing to do/ And one of those things is not to fall for you."

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