The album includes elements of dance, R&B, pop rock, hip hop and Middle Eastern music.

She expressed a desire to perform with more live instruments, saying in a Billboard interview that she wanted "no more dancers, no more singing to tracks.

The opening track "In My Pocket" is a dance-pop song mixed with techno and R&B beats with a Middle Eastern sound.

"[5] Entertainment Weekly gave the album a mostly positive review and a B−, saying that Moore "tries out new sounds -- Eastern rhythms, jangly percussives -- that help separate her from the pack.

"[8] Rolling Stone also gave the album a positive review, saying, "It's so rare and refreshing when a teen star takes the high road...[Mandy's] CD offers the most startlingly liberated teen pop since Eighties mall-rat icon Tiffany euphemistically declared herself 'New Inside'.

[12] Moore had her first headlined show, called "Mandy Moore Live @ ShoutBack", where she performed the songs: Moore also performed a number of songs live on TV shows, such as on TRL ("In My Pocket" and "Crush"), MTV Asia Sessions ("In My Pocket", "I Wanna Be with You" and "When I Talk to You"), The Rosie O'Donnell Show ("In My Pocket"), Miss Teen USA ("Crush"), Live with Regis and Kelly ("Cry"), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ("Crush"), Channel V ("Crush"), and at the MTV Asia Awards ("Cry" as a duet with Regine Velasquez), among others.

The song did not become a huge hit, but its unique sound allowed Moore to move away from the stereotypical image of other teen pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears, all of whom she had spent much of her early career being compared to.

The song also peaked at number 21 on the Pop 100 chart, where it stayed for nine weeks,[13] and also appeared on the seventh installment of U.S. version of the compilation series Now That's What I Call Music!, released in July 2001.

The music video, directed by Matthew Rolston, was shot in a nightclub that was given a Middle Eastern look to match the similar feel of the song itself, including belly dancers and fire blowers.

The second single, "Crush", also failed to make much impact on the U.S. charts, but it appeared on the eighth installment of the U.S. compilation series, Now That's What I Call Music!, released in November 2001.

On September 10, 2001, it became Moore's first video to reach the number-one spot on MTV's countdown show Total Request Live.