The record was a pop tour de force that 14 year old boys who knew better - by this point, I'd been exposed to the twin worlds of punk rock and hardcore - were all too happy to avoid. I listened in spite of the adolescent pressures that came from my friends, who, themselves, were just as far down a bad musical wormhole as I was since they were listening to Korn - who, while more tormented lyrically and traditionally heavier musically - were just as much of a commercial product as any lip stick smacking pop pint. 'So Real' was the perfect distillation of what was playing on Rick Dee's, American Top 40, and my local hits station, B-93.7. Awash in Max Martin mimicked synthesizers that sounded like a take off from Britney Spears' 'Crazy', the titular track basked in Mandy's cooing vocals, as she intoned sensually to an unnamed love interest.
What I never noticed at the time - surprisingly, given my then virginal mind that threatened to explode at the brush of any girl's hand as they passed by in the school hallway - were the lyrics; coy couplets that should have been sending me into fifth period fantasy worlds. "Innocence is what I got, it'll take true love to hit the spot." Much like earlier pop tarts like Alisha, or Mary Weiss, I doubt Mandy was aware of the deeper layers of metaphorical tissue nesting themselves beneath the seemingly innocuous lyrics and the intonations that "I just can't explain the way that it's making me feel...". It's bizarre to me, looking back now, that my mother - a woman, who, despite her brutish sensibilities, still knew how to pick every piece of iniquity there was to be found out of a pop song - didn't catch Mandy's machinated yearnings moments after I popped the CD into our car's stereo. "Gonna hafta keep me satisfied, because my innocence won't be denied." I would imagine that Mandy was so far beyond excited to be inside of a real recording studio at the time of the track's documentation, that when the lyrics were handed to her, she gave them only a quick skim before clearing her throat and figuring out how to vocalize the words properly.
'Candy' was more of the same - trading the blatant references to tarnished innocence for candy metaphors, playing a G-Rated precursor to 50 Cent's 'Candy Shop' and acting as a descendent to Bow Wow Wow's exuberant 'I Want Candy'. What caught me as particularly special about 'So Real' was the feeling that I'd in some way been able to pick up on some kind of secret girl dispatch. In my social circles, there were no Kathleen Hanna's or future Emma Goldman's; no females looking to break out of their conservative Southern upbringings to challenge the social intricacies and status quo around them. No, every single girl in my class was roped in by Total Request Live and the bantering of heart throb Carson Daly, as he broadcasted the good word and gospel downward to the cash strapped pre-learners permit peasants from the pop Mount Olympus of Times Square on a daily basis. Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears were the main talking pieces for the sentiments of every girl within a five mile radius; they were seasoned performers who had all of the sheen and gloss that came with years of experience inside of the corporate entertainment world. Maybe she was from a similar breeding, but Mandy Moore seemed less polished, more wholesome - a girl in anywhere town USA who could be sitting in front of me, sighing in exasperation as I leaned over in my best attempt to discreetly steal answers off of her paper during a pop quiz.
Square in the album's mid section sits a 16 second interlude, a few brief rings of a telephone before Mandy's answering machine catches it, her outgoing message requesting that the caller leave a message. What follows is the slightly panicked sound of Bonnie, a friend of Mandy's, "I heard what happened. Call me. Bye." Quick. Brisk. Succinct, and to the point. It's as if a private communique had been left buried in, looked over and forgotten, adding another element of intrigue to the attaché case that was 'So Real'. Mandy wasn't some displaced cheerleader like Brittany, nor was she a faux genie, preening on the beach like Christina. She was nearly 16, drove a green Bug, hung out at malt shops (though, to be fair, how many of those still existed IRL in 1999?), and swooned over boys that were better looking, in better shape, and all around better catches to her than I would ever be.
In that sado-masochist fantasy, I found comfort. In fiction as in non, Mandy seemed closer and more tangible in the realism of how intangible she truly was. I would never, in that moment of tapping into 'So Real's forbidden secretes, have the clout to date the head cheerleader or the class president, but there was always the element of chance. Those other pop princesses - their archetypes were unattainable, and in the Divine Comedy of high school, four years may as well have been eternity itself. In that time, in my fifteen year old mind, I had the ability to become like one of Kafka's creations, and transform into something better. Something - someone - who could date both the head cheerleader and the class president (though, not at the same time, of course - my fantasies weren't at the Jeff Spicoli level just yet).
Eventually, my fascination with 'So Real's 13 tracks faded. After awhile, I felt that my sojourn into its pandora's box had been a fruitless venture. The girls sitting around me in class, the girls that were supposed to be the real life versions of Mandy's projected normality, still paid me minimal attention, deigning to talk to me only when they, themselves, were attempting to discreetly cop answers off of my paper during pop quizzes. No amount of 'understanding' on my end would ingratiate me. The abilities that I'd felt 'So Real' had bestowed upon me to relate to the girls in my peer group had been a bill of goods and there was no way I was going to be able to turn that secret knowledge to my advantage.
One night, months later, while flipping through the channels, I came upon a re-airing of 'Candy' on MTV and, again, was pulled in by the colors, the spiked pony tail of the temptress, and the inner resentment of seeing her polarized towards tight shirted bro's instead of artsy misfits. Pressing the button one channel forward, I stumbled upon archival footage being aired on VH1 of Plasmatics front woman Wendy O' Williams angrily decimating a stack of televisions. All I could do was grin.
