CDNOW

January 10, 2000

Another one falls off the assembly line. While not a graduate of the prolific New Mickey Mouse Club, with her debut album, Mandy Moore is certain to make life even more complicated for those already having problems telling their Jessicas apart from their Christinas and Britneys. Moore shares all the telltale attributes of her, um, older pop peers -- immaculately groomed blonde hair, studied teenage charm, and a lubricious voice that suggests she's 15 going on 35. Naturally, she makes no attempt to kick new life into the well-worn, but instantly prosperous formula.

Despite her youth, Moore even has the regulation soft-porn-as-female-empowerment debut single with "Candy." It features the regrettable lines: "I'm so addicted to the loving that you're feeding to me/ Can't do without it, this feeling has got me weak in the knees." With an eerily familiar hip-hop beat, it is her color-by-numbers response to "... Baby One More Time" and "Genie in a Bottle."

Its outright lack of originality will certainly rub you the wrong way, much like rest of what follows on So Real, which, to put it bluntly, is just another collection of whitewashed, studio-produced R&B, replete with standard-issue beats, cold synthesizer flourishes and absolutely no soul. If the acoustic ballad "Quit Breaking My Heart" sounded any more clinical, it would have to be sung by R2-D2. Likewise, the disco-influenced "I Like It" boasts rubbery grooves that only succeed in making Moore's voice sound even squeakier than usual. Tours with the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync have already insured target-market stardom, but commercial success can hardly compensate for this creative failure.

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