Amanda Blank - I Love You

“Art must be beautiful. Artist must be beautiful.” This refrain repeated over and over by Marina Abramovic for her short film project Art Must be Beautiful as she combs her hair with a hard plastic comb and a hard metal brush scratching her face in the process is the first image that sprung to mind when hearing Amanda Blank’s “Make Up,” and acid filled throwback to early electroclash.

The song is about a woman trying to make herself look good for a potential suitor. It starts simply, listing make up and techniques “Blush / Eye Liner / Hush / See What you Made Me do?” but with it there is a sinister, hungry element to the whole song carved out with minimal lyrics and reverb and echo placed at the end of lines which drag the final word to a cavernous oblivion of want. “If I wear a dress, he’ll never call / so I’ll wear much less, I guess I’ll wear my camisole” speak to the whole desire to be noticed by an object of affection. It’s a really unique song in structure, production and lyrical content and shows a kind of universal honesty present in the lyrics on a album filled with the typical snarling arrogant swagger which has always been in hip hop (the next song, Gimmie What You Got opens with a repeated verse of “Hottest Motherfucker on the Whole Damn Block”).

I’ve been a fan of the whole Baltimore Bass Connection / Spank Rock circle of artists since becoming aware of them in 2006 through randomly buying a copy of the first Spank Rock album YoYoYoYoYo. Having spent most of my late teens and early 20s going out clubbing in Baltimore and DC in the early and mid 90s, I was exposed to a lot of Ghettotek, Baltimore Club, Booty House, Hip Hop, House and Breaks. Thanks to the Mid-Atlantic DJs from that era , I was given a musical vocabulary into which the Spank Rock album easily plugged. From there I went out and discovered some of the stuff I had missed like Aaron LaCrate and started to put words to music and artists I had heard out previously like learning more of the Unruly Records artists / producers.

Amanda Blank kept coming up, usually in conjunction with Spank Rock and a few years ago she and XXXChange managed to put out Get It Now and while it was good, I felt the track “Shake ‘Em Down” was the strongest track on that single. However she grew seemingly from strength to strength, gaining exposure with verses on a number of in crowd remixes and releases culminating with, oddly, a part on an officially sanctioned Britney Spears remix.

So there is a degree of expectation coming into this album. She’ll rap fast, she’ll spit sex rhymes so nasty Lil’ Kim would blush, the production will be top notch, and it will be a fun, if ultimately disposable, party record geared towards tracks rather than songs. This is where I was wrong; really, really wrong. I underestimated Amanda Blank’s ability and reach, which was really dumb on my part. However, we have been blessed with one of the strongest albums I’ve yet heard this year.

The album opens strongly with an up tempo party jam “Make it, Take It” which is built more on recent rock than on current hip hop memes. From there, the album moves to “Something Bigger, Something Better” a slower song whose content is breathy in places, which really stands out as you can hear her sharp intakes of breath in contrast to the breathless track before. The third track is the absolutely amazing “Make Up.” “Gimmie What you Got” features Naeem of Spank Rock who spends his verse ripping into critics with his typical amazing speed “say something / tweet tweet motherfucker” “Lemme Get Some” really reminds me of Lilly Allen lyrically with the whole “leave me alone” vibe that carries through up to the Chuck Inglish guest verse. “Shame on me” sounds like it’s written for modern pop radio with its swelling synth laced chorus wherein the singer laments the loss of a recent lover. “A Love Song” is an absolute amazing riff on LL Cool J’s “I Need Love” with a very 808 sounding drum line to further reinforce the time and place of the original song. “Dj” is a very New York Freestyle sounding track with a bubbling tom and straight-forward bass line. “Might Like You Better” is the sex song with pretty amazing production work and a very dance hall influenced drum element and chorus lifted from Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never”, I understand why it’s the single, but I think that it’s really one of the weaker tracks on the album. “Big Heavy” is slice of neodisco / synthpop madness. Lykke Li features on the last track “Leave You Behind” a ballad about getting over someone.

Taken as a whole as presented, Amanda Blank’s debut album I Love You can be taken as an album about seeing someone, wanting them, having them, losing them then finding the courage and strength to go on with your life. It doesn’t fit perfectly into this mold and to get it to truly do so, you’d need to switch a few verses on a few tracks and the track order, but it this album is more than just a collection of singles to sell ring tones and contains tracks which I’m certain I’ll be revisiting in years rather than forgetting the whole thing in just weeks. This album is worth your money and your time.

See all my Amanda Blank Pictures from Sirenfest 2009

Edit: I was able to find the piece "Art Must Be Beautiful" on Youtube.