If you enjoy PG-rated dance grooves and lyrics reminiscent of phone calls you made to your friends back in the eighth grade, then Amanda is the artist for you. If you dislike the above, then perhaps this bubblegum pop album may not be your best bet.
With her debut album “Everybody Doesn’t,” Swedish teen megastar Amanda has crossed over to the United States and infected Billboard and other pop charts with yet another dose of overplayed pop music and digitally enhanced vocals.
Following in the footsteps of her contemporaries, such as Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Amanda’s latest release is a compilation of European-flavored dance music and diva-esque love ballads, neither of which showcase any amount of talent.
The album holds eleven tracks of so-called dance grooves, two of which are love ballads worthy of a junior high school dance.
While some of Amanda’s tunes have catchy rhythms, the hip-hop instrumentals usually become ruined within the first six measures of the song.
Once the singing starts, the head-bopping turns to more of a sad shaking and the mouth that was once smiling begins to grit its teeth in anger for being tricked into thinking it was going to be a good song.
In the album’s title track, “Everybody Doesn’t,” Amanda breathily croons the chorus, “Everybody does it/ That’s what you keep saying/ Everybody doesn’t/ Not everybody’s playing/ I wanna be your girlfriend/ But you’ve gotta turn the pressure off/ Just stop.”
Granted Amanda may be the only young female pop artist with morals (as opposed to other teen pop stars who sing sexually suggestive lyrics, such as “Hit me baby, one more time” or “You gotta rub me the right way”), her delivery of the song lyrics is about as bad as the lyrics themselves.
Given a pen and paper, a five-year-old could probably write a better song about abstinence; and given a microphone, a twelve-year-old boy going through puberty could probably sing the song less nasally and with less screeching than Amanda.
If you think you recall hearing that familiar screech and nasally voice before, then you’ve probably encountered Amanda back in 2000 when she was featured in the super-dee-duper blockbuster Rugrats in Paris (.ooh.ahh.).
Her song “You Don’t Stand A Chance” was part of the Rugrats soundtrack produced by Maverick Recording Company. Maverick, a Madonna-run company that also produces Prodigy and Lauryn Hill , must have found something in Amanda to have offered her a contract, but by signing Amanda to their label they probably were not expecting to commit suicide.
In all fairness, there must be a special characteristic that is the nature of Amanda’s appeal; if it’s not her voice it’s got to be something else.
After all, she has gotten radio play and a music video that might make it to MTV’s Total Request Live.
But in all honesty, I cannot and could not find it.
In reviewing this CD, attempts were made to be fair to both the artist and my ears, but because I care more about my health, I only risked listening to “Amanda: Everybody Doesn’t” once thoroughly. Anything more might have killed me.
Not being much of a bubblegum pop fan, my opinions are slightly biased. But being a music aficionado, and having studied and exposed myself to all genres of music, from bluegrass to punk rock, and techno to zaideco, I have concluded that Amanda stinks.
Although she may look good in a photo shoot, and she might have the perfect hair and teeth for a music video, she lacks the musical talent that one should have in order to deserve such fame.
Maverick Records needs to wake up and realize that Amanda is really not “all that and a bag of chips” and revoke her contract in order to save their company and our ears. Or if Maverick is going to keep Amanda with the hope that she will become something great, they should at least give her a last name. “Ooh. I’m Amanda. just Amanda. I’m special. I don’t have a last name.”
Oh, poor Amanda. Maybe she’s appealing because she goes by one name, like Madonna and Tupac and Beck; or maybe it’s because her teeth are perfectly white and she looks good in Seventeen magazine.
But it is certain that her music is not appealing. Not to me at least.
As Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no try,” I simply say, “DO NOT EVEN TRY to listen to this CD.”
Beware of one-named teeny-boppers whose credits include being on the Rugrats soundtrack and songs entitled “Crush on You.”
Oh, poor Amanda. Everybody doesn’t want to buy your album. And to quote Amanda – “You don’t stand a chance.” You are the weakest link to music. Goodbye.

Author