Marcel Winatschek

Amanda Blank Doesn’t Bother Apologizing

"Might Like You Better" is a song about sex dressed up as a pop song about feelings, and Amanda Blank delivers it with the confidence of someone who finds the distinction slightly funny. The video, from her album I Love You, matches that energy exactly—bright, direct, completely unembarrassed by itself.

She’d come up through collaborations with Santigold, M.I.A., Ghostface Killah—not bad company, the kind of association that sharpens an artist’s sense of register. I Love You carries all of that: tight production, a warm lo-fi aesthetic, and then buried near the end, "Leaving You Behind" with Lykke Li, which is genuinely crushing in the way only a slow song tucked into an otherwise loud record can be. The contrast does all the heavy lifting.

On that note—Lykke Li had gone suspiciously quiet around this time and I was getting impatient in the particular way you get when someone makes one great album and then simply waits.