It's sorta poetic to think of Mandy Moore's early career - when she seemed to be competing against the then virginal and righteous Jessica Simpson (seriously!) for the title of "least likely to succeed" among the crop of TRL divas that emerged in the '98-'99 school year - in contrast to where she (and the others) are now. Like Jessica, Mandy wore her Christian faith on her sleeve notes, and what's worse (at least, if one is to maintain a career as a TRL diva): she seemed to actually care about her faith in real life too (enough to engage in a scathing critique of religious hypocrisy with her performance in the film Saved!). My first impressions of young Mandy were that she was just a little too earnest - she seemed entirely lacking in the kind of artistic cynicism that would eventually drive Britney into her present zone and inspire Jessica to shill for Pizza Hut wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes. If Mandy Moore's harmless pop songs lacked a certain illicit f-ckability, they were slick and professional and sufficiently catchy. Okay, so class doesn't sell. But not only could you still respect yourself the morning after a night spent listening to "I Wanna Be With You" - you could respect her too: a direct violation of the TRL diva code.
It became obvious with Moore's 2003 album Coverage, which found her taking on songs by artists as diverse and challenging as John Hiatt and Joan Armatrading, Joe Jackson and XTC, and actually doing brilliant, adult contemporary pop justice to songs like "Drop the Pilot" and "Senses Working Overtime" (contrast these performances with Britney's tepid karaoke night covers of Joan Jett and the Stones, and oh yeah, Bobby Brown) - one would think that she actually knew and loved these songs, even before she recorded them - that Moore was no teen idol, nor did she really care to be one. This young lady may never sell as many records (nor nearly as many tabloids) as Britney or Jessica. But with the release of her latest album Wild Hope - a collection of originals (she shares writing credit on each of the album's 12 tracks) that don't stray far in mood, production, or craft from the songs she'd performed on Coverage - she's proving herself a strong, distinctive, individual artist in ways that Britney or Jessica could scarcely understand, much less aspire to.
Wild Hope has me at hello. With shuffly snare intro and watery electric piano ripples, this is a record that, in its first 30 seconds, makes it clear that we're about to party (or, rather, sit up in our room quietly writing in our diary) like it's 1974. The album finds Moore moving in a most becoming country-pop (as opposed to pop-country) direction that feels immediately warm, summery and classic, simultanteously nostalgic and current. In the opening track, Mandy announces in a fluttery June falsetto that she's ready to be "Extraordinary", but the most extraordinary thing about Wild Hope is how effortless and modest and real the record feels - the way Moore makes the opening verse of the gently rocking "Latest Mistake", with its quietly swooning slide guitars and soulful keyboard parts (shades of Spooner Oldham), feel like an overheard conversation.
Maybe it's just because everyone around her - not just the Britneys, but the Janets and Paulas and Madonnas too - has started to sound like cyborgs, but listening to a song like "Most of Me", which rolls along like wagon wheels on a country trail, hearing the bashful hints of an Appalachian lilt in the song's legato melodies and friendly promises, it dawns upon me that Mandy Moore just has one of the most lovely voices on record these days. She's not a belter or a whisperer or a screamer. Or a vocoder, for that matter. "Can't You Just Adore Her" may be pure Nashville, but she never goes Shania on us. Instead, when she softsells the subversively chipper chorus of "Looking Forward to Looking Back" over a gently rolling piano line, she sounds like no one so much as her generation's answer to Christine McVie.
There may not be much that could really be called original about the performances on Wild Hope, except for the fact that they aren't inordinately angry, they aren't shamelessly self-objectifying, and they aren't decked out with a surfeit of production tricks, Timbaland beats, or strategically placed guest appearances (unless you count songwriting partners Chantal Kreviazuk and Loreena McKennit). This is merely a more-than-half-decent adult-contemporary singer-songwriter record - a 21st century cousin (or niece, as it were) to the records Carly Simon and Carole King were putting out throughout the 70s and early 80s, long after the impact of their career-making classics. Relaxed and relaxing, pleasantly unspectacular and effortlessly listenable... the perfect record to accompany a good book and an idyllic summer afternoon cozied up in white (fiberglass) wicker furniture on the front porch. It's the kind of record I actually want to listen to, and enjoy listening to, even if it doesn't really stick much with me afterwards.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Wild Hope" by Mandy Moore
EMI Records
Released 6/19/2007
Produced by John Alagia
45 min.
SONGS: Extraordinary - All Good Things - Slummin' in Paradise - Most of Me - Few Days Down - Can't You Just Adore Her? - Looking Forward to Looking Back - Wild Hope - Nothing That You Are - Latest Mistake - Ladies' Choice - Gardenia
1. Extraordinary 2:54 2. All Good Things 2:53 3. Slummin' in Paradise 4:11 4. Most of Me 4:47 5. Few Days Down 3:23 6. Can't You Just Adore Her? 3:55 ...More at NBC Universal
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