CD Review: Amanda Blank

I Love You (Downtown)

Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:00 am

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Philadelphia rapper Amanda Mallory picked a fitting moniker. On her debut album, Amanda Blank glides through chilly beats and a detached demeanor as empty as her soulless vocals. It's hipster hip-hop with raunchy rhymes about fucking designed to shock, awe and wink at its equally hip audience. But Blank is way too self-conscious to pull it off. It doesn't help that the various producers (including Diplo) fill the space with beats ranging from merely robotic to totally annoying. But I Love You's biggest problem is Blank, whose hipster cred rose a few years back with an appearance on a Spank Rock track. Spread out over far-from-breezy 33 minutes, she comes off like a naughty little girl who just figured out she can make people squirm by rapping about her cooter. Pretty vacant. — Gallucci