Robbed hit of the week 1/24/22 - Mandy Moore's "Candy"...
"Candy" - Mandy Moore
from the albums So Real (1999) and I Wanna Be With You (2000)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41
This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer/actress Mandy Moore, who grew up in Florida, and had sung on some children's records before being discovered by producer/songwriters Tony Battaglia and Shaun Fisher, who helped her get signed to Epic Records as a teen. In 1999, Moore released her debut album So Real. The lead single, "Candy", was produced by Battaglia and Fisher along with Denny Kleiman, who wrote the song with Dave Katz and "song doctor" Denise Rich. Despite the record's American team behind it, "Candy" sounds minted from the Swedish hit factory that brought us Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC (the latter of whom Moore opened on tour for). In fact, the song makes more than a passing resemblance to Robyn's top ten pop hit "Do You Know What It Takes". It was surely meant to have Moore capitalize on the Britney phenomenon, but Moore is actually a much better singer, and even with the hokey lyrics bordering on sexual tension, Mandy has a more self-assured delivery, and I quite dug this record, flaws and all...
While "Candy" climbed to #27 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, the song stalled right under the Hot 100 top-40 in October of 1999. Internationally, the single was a bigger success, reaching the top ten in Australia (#2), the UK (#6), Belgium (#9F/#30W), and New Zealand (#10). It also made the top-40 in France (#16), Ireland (#27), Iceland (#29), Canada (#35), and Switzerland (#39). The So Real album, released in December of that year, went to #31 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell almost a million copies.
The second release from So Real was "Walk Me Home", written and produced by DJ/remixer Tony Moran. It was a ballad, however, and while it got to #38 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, the single missed the Hot 100 altogether. Both songs would end up being included in Mandy's next release I Wanna Be With You, titled for the song that would bring Moore into the top-40.
(7/10)
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Here's Mandy getting down with a live band for her performance on MADTV....
and lastly, from her Silver Linings shows at the Bootleg Theater in L.A. in 2020. with husband Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes in her backing band....
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