Music Video Breakdown: Candy by Mandy Moore
A little bit ago I was up in Kansas City hanging out with Spencer and James (friends of the pod). I was staying at James’ house and his daughter was requesting music that we could all dance to. We ended up getting to Candy by Mandy Moore with the music video playing and I had to stop dancing to watch this masterpiece. This is by no means an original idea but after watching the music video I immediately thought about starting a blog series. Welcome to the first Music Video Breakdown featuring Candy by Mandy Moore.
Song Background
Candy was released as a single on August 17th, 1999 off the album So Real.
When this song dropped Mandy was only 15!!
Somehow the highest it got on the Billboard Top 100 was #41.
The video has over 15 million views on YouTube
Honestly, this song still slaps. I could ham to this more often, it’s just a fun song that you want to bop around to.
Video Breakdown
00:00-0:07: What happened to paper boys? This video starts with a kid riding his bike throwing newspapers to the neighborhood. Do paper boys still exist anywhere? Around us it’s just middle aged dudes driving around in an old school partially creepy van.
0:07-0:34: We enter a teenage Mandy’s bedroom and all of a sudden we have weird camera angles and shots that only show half her face. What was the point of this? I also really want to know what poster’s she has on her wall (it’s crazy how some people will pause and watch the same scene of a video or trailer and be able to discern all this tiny stuff)
0:34-0:57: In this 23 second spot she has 4 outfit changes, was that necessary? Shoutout to the walkman too, those things were the bomb especially if you had one with the "anti-skip” technology. Kids these days will never know the struggle.
0:57-1:19: Again, another shoutout to the clothes that her friends are wearing. Also she is cruising around in a VW Bug…..was that ever a cool car? lol Another random thing I noticed: is her family’s house for sale?
1:19-1:50: I feel like skateboards and scooters have had a nice comeback, remember when razor scooters were the hot thing? This video came out in ‘99, kids were definitely not meeting at a restaurant/burger joint with a jukebox right? We were going to the mall, walking around for hours and not buying anything. I think kids still do this too, shoutout to just walking the mall.
1:50-2:18: The girls drove to this spot and there were 2 guys with electric scooters but one guy only had a skateboard. Did he just hold onto the scooters as they drove? If not, he must be the fastest skateboarder around. Another fashion question, what is going on with this random intricately tied ribbon that just showed up on Mandy’s arm?
2:24-2:42: While sitting in the booth Mandy and the gals do this strange “come and get it” motion and then walk by the guys. The guys take this as a queue to come out and meet them in the parking lot, little do the guys know that a dance party is about to break out.
2:42-3:00: I have so much to say about this dance party but here’s just a few comments. Mandy clearly was not the best dancer and I respect that, but man, the dance moves she is doing are just super strange, especially compared to the back up dancers. We are back with the “come and get it” motion, somebody rolls, and what feels like a lot of kicks to be honest.
3:00-3:10: The talking here is so damn cringy, why did musicians feel like this was a good idea? (A note from Ellen: I am ALL IN on the mid-song monologue and call backs to previous song lyrics, thank you Britney. Bring it back immediately.)
3:10-3:18: Mandy and her man are cruising on his scooter around the neighborhood, WAIT WAIT WAIT how many mirrors does a scooter need?!?! If I’m not mistaken I am counting 8 mirrors here, that seems like overkill lol (see picture below)
3:18-3:34: We made it to a skatepark or just someone’s backyard with a drained pool. The 5 girls are in the pool dancing again while 2 skaters are skateboarding around them, this seems dangerous.
3:35: That dude literally fell off his skateboard and they just left it in the video
3:36-3:58: Girls are out of the pool so the guys can really shred now (I don’t know shit about skateboarding lol). I hope this ends well for everyone involved, they all seem young with a full life ahead of them.
How many mirrors does a scooter actually need?