Review: Amanda Blank | I Love You

Like many a party person before her, Philly-based electro-rap filly Amanda Blank wants you to know that she has a sensitive side. Halfway through her debut album, not long after deciding in a cover of Vanity 6's "Make-Up" that a camisole makes for a much more seductive outfit than a boring old dress, Blank delivers "A Love Song," in which she flips LL Cool J's tough-guy lament "I Need Love" over a sizable sample of her buddy Santigold's "I'm a Lady."

"My soul is cold," she admits. "One half of me deserves to be this way till I'm old." Then it's back to the dance floor with a digi-funk riff on Romeo Void's "Never Say Never." That tune's refrain, in case you've forgotten: "I might like you better if we slept together."

In other words, Blank is a product of the cut-and-paste era; nearly everything on I Love You, which arrives in the wake of several buzz-building collaborations with Spank Rock, seems like a tongue-in-cheek version of something else. That's probably a wise tactic, since unlike fellow magpies Santigold and M.I.A. (whose pals Diplo and Switch contribute production here), she's a better rapper than she is a songwriter. Her what pales in comparison to her how.