In Real Life

Mandy Moore signed her first record deal when she was 14, set up to become a teen pop superstar with seamlessly engineered bubblegum hits like 1999’s “Candy”. In the more than two decades since, her albums have grown more and more introspective, and, as a result, more and more unfettered: 2007’s <i>Wild Hope</i> was optimistic country pop; 2020’s <i>Silver Landings</i> was a love letter to Southern California, the sound of a woman learning to make peace with her past. On 2022’s <i>In Real Life</i>, she has evolved into a mother (as heard on the title track), an empath (“Little Dreams”) and a wife (“Four Moons”, with its romantic organ and tender lyrics like “I wanna hold your hand a little too much/Step on your toes, pull you in close/Never really close enough”).