Amanda Blank--I Love You: Still Rides Like Kelly Bundy, Albeit Inconsistently

I never really understood the collective critical jizzing that accompanied Spank Rock's YoYoYoYoYo release three years ago. It's a good album, sure, but so good that you compel Bjork to enlist you as a support act? Still, few can doubt the pervy goodness of Spank Rock's breakout track, "Bump," at the core of which is Amanda Blank's thrillingly horny, Black Eyed Peas-dissin' guest verse. No matter how many plays "Bump" got on our digital music devices, we all yearned for more from Blank's sassy ass.

Blank's solo debut, I Love You certainly gives us more--even teasing us with song titles like "Something Bigger Something Better"--but doesn't exactly satisfy our cravings, base or otherwise. A dirty rhyme turns up here and there, but the listener will have to choke down a lot of electrotrash rehash, and Blank's unspectacular singing voice, to get to it.

Not all these expectational upsets are negative, though. At times, as on the LL Cool J interpolating "Love Song," Blank shows sincerity and heart. This is a smart move that suggests potential staying power--Blank is savvy enough to know that you can't go cruising on the sleaze highway at 100 mph all the time. Yet, she should work a little harder on her voice when her libido takes a day off, because slower tracks like "DJ" and "Leaving You Behind" plod on and on. However, these two tracks can be excused, as sandwiched between them are I Love You's best tracks--"Big Heavy," which brings on one of the most immense hooks of the year and a disco euphoric outro, and "Might Like You Better," a riff on Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," in itself a winning idea, if not a totally successful one.

On the sleaze end, Blank is still at her dirtiest when collaborating with that foul soul Spank Rock, who pops up on "Gimme What You Got." Still, give Blank some time and more room to spread her wings, and she could someday be our new smut-pop leader.

Level of Disappointment: 8; seeing her live prior to hearing I Love You really inflated my expectations; we're definitely talking an artist who's better live than on record here.

To Watch: Video for "Might Like You Better" (eh, she's foxy!).