Marcel Winatschek

Mandy Moore

Britney and Christina dominated the late nineties, and the Spice Girls too. They earned every bit of attention they got. But around the turn of the millennium, Mandy Moore released So Real and something just clicked. I didn’t understand half of what she was singing. Didn’t even matter. There was Candy, Walk Me Home, Lock Me in Your Heart—this collection of songs that somehow never landed the way they should have, at least not with anyone I knew. I’d put the album on for friends and watch it go nowhere with them. They didn’t hear what I heard.

She kept making records after that. I Wanna Be with You, Coverage, a self-titled thing, Amanda Leigh. The last one barely sold—seventeen thousand copies in the US according to Wikipedia. Those numbers tell their own story. By then Mandy had mostly moved into acting anyway, which was probably the right move. Movies and television had better prospects than whatever was happening in pop music.

But it doesn’t change anything now. Britney and Christina earned their moment completely. They deserved it. Mandy Moore is just who I actually cared about. Not because she was underrated or overlooked. Just because her music worked in a way nothing else quite did. Still works, actually, when I go back to listen.