Director of Photography: Leo Hsu; Creative Director: Colleen Lennon; Senior Art Director: Meg Konigsburg; Digital Tech: Alex Kalb; Assistant: Clay Campbell; Wardrobe: Herin Choi; Wardrobe Assistant: Radhika Patel; Hair: Antionette Hill; Makeup: Mark de los Reyes; Prop Stylist: Milena Gorum; Prop Assitant: Katie Bloom; Location Scout: Matthew Dipple; VP, Talent Partnerships & Influencer Strategy: Steven Devall; Talent Manager: Michelle Lifavi; Associate Director, Creative Services: Ariana Jiffo; Senior Creative Services Manager: Amy Wenzel; Producer: Alex Friedlander; Production Assistant: Robbie Fay
Production Credits
It’s only been a year since we last heard from Mark. Her EP Loosies was the genre mashup of playful and experimental beats, which highlight her ability to create something spontaneous and fun; Pretty Idea is where a more cohesive narrative unfolds. It’s the retelling of love lost in the midst of rehabilitation. By the time you reach the titular coda “Pretty Idea,” she regains cathartic clarity. Though coated in a silky veneer, it’s her durability that’s loud and clear on the record. After all the bittersweet longing is over — songs like “Ooo” and “Sweet Serotonin” chronicle the thrill of a romantic chase — she’s remade whole on the other side.
Mark spent most of her early years traveling, living with her biological mother in places like Nepal, India, and Berlin, though New York has always been home base. Her upbringing was unconventional but part of the reason why she’s now able to adjust to the transient nature of her life as a singer. “I've chosen a career that requires so much traveling and never really being in one place for too long. I definitely see the irony in that,” she says. “It set me up to adjust to that lifestyle and accept this kind of life. It helped me to be adaptable to new and challenging situations.”
You can still hear phantom sounds of Mark’s childhood in her
music today, though it has a more subtle presence than it did in her formative years as an artist. She notes her time in India as being particularly influential. “I was doing it more intentionally with the first EP because I was really talking about my time there. I wanted
to use that sonically to express those feelings,” she says. “It's very much
a part of who I am today.” And that sonic expression has always come naturally to her, though the idea of being a professional singer never crossed her mind. “I remember we had computer class when I was in elementary school here in New York, and we would get the option to work on these MacBooks and they had GarageBand or iMovie . . . and
I would always immediately want to [use] GarageBand,” she says. She spent years making beats whenever she had access to a computer. It wouldn’t be until high school, when she was enrolled in a music program where the students essentially formed a band (“kind of School of Rock”), that she’d get her first taste of being on stage. In her early 20s, Mark found motivation to turn this innate passion into something bigger after landing an internship at a record label. There, she was enamored with the “stars” and “glitter of it all.”
Even now, the gravitational pull she originally felt for production is obvious. As her lyrical abilities sharpen, it’s her musical versatility that’s already cemented her as an artist to watch. Jazz, R&B, and pop are familiar genres she’s blended together on previous records, but Pretty Idea adds yacht rock, indie acoustics, and ’70s disco to the mix. Oftentimes, musicians will undergo individual “eras” in their careers, like maybe this album will have a heavier retro feel but next year’s will lean harder into electro-folk. Mark has bypassed those limitations since 2017.
Mark recalls the song “The Best of You” being particularly challenging to make for this album. “Even when I was recording the vocals, I was in this emotional state,” she says. And the weight of the lyrics is palpable: “You just a lesson in love and rejection,” she sings, “wondering how I gave you the best of me, but she'll get the best of
you now.” It’s not the first time you can feel her sadness on Pretty Idea, but it’s maybe her in her rawest form.
We hear it all the time: Stars, they’re just like us! And while most people won’t ever step into a studio to record an album so good it’ll earn them a spot as a special guest on the Short n’ Sweet tour, we all know heartbreak well — in all its forms. Sometimes, Mark says, you just need to be in the feeling. Sometimes, the only thing that can soothe that ache in your chest is to add a score. “The reality of the situation is that it just sucks, and there’s not really any advice that can instantly get you out of that feeling,” she says. We’re human, we adapt. “Eventually, you are able to wake up one day and you're not thinking about that person, and you don't even realize it — and that's you moving on.”
when Amber Mark first tells me that her second studio album is about the ending of a long-term relationship, I imagined a sweeping journey of saccharine sadness. But Pretty Idea tells an old story in a new key. Here, she transforms her grief into something precious. “Who knew the things we’d go through would make diamonds,” she sings on “Problems,” the third to last song on the album. She mixes the traditional elements of a post-breakup retrospective with buoyant resiliency. “I love this bittersweet melancholy feeling that you can get from songs that are lyrically quite emotional but end up having some sort of up-tempo beat to it regardless,” she says. The textured instrumentals make you want to bob your head, while the echo of nostalgia in her lyrics makes the heart flutter. This contrast is where Mark’s power lies.
ursing a broken heart to a slow-paced minor chord is the greatest kind of indulgence. In that way, “sad” songs can feel like prescriptions for heartache. So,
N
Amber
MARK'S
By Samantha Sasso
PHOTOGRAPHS by OSCAR OUK
NEW
GROOVE
Her new album, Pretty Idea, is a testament to emotional resiliency.
It may be surprising to listeners that, for how unarmed
she is in the booth, she can feel just as hesitant to express herself in actual conversation. It was something she specifically dealt with after her mother’s passing, and it
was this grief that she worked through on the 2022 album Three Dimensions Deep. Three years later, she found herself nervous opening up about a failed relationship for Pretty Idea. “These are things that I don't really like to talk about. I tend to be quite reserved when it comes to my relationships,” she says. “It was really hard for me to get over the long, serious relationship that most of these songs are about. And I'm still in the process of getting over that.”
In a previous interview, Mark mentioned that while making this album, she was sure to leave anxiety out of
the room, which was made easier by the people in the
room with her. Having worked with most of them in
the past, it became significantly easier to maintain that crucial vulnerability that makes even her most energetic and sultry songs substantial. And for her art, it has always paid off. “I don't really hold back and I'm okay with that,” she says. “I'm going through very human experiences and people relate to them. It's a scary feeling to be so vulnerable, but in the end, the outcome has always been that people reach out to me having connected with it. That's a very comforting feeling.”
It's a scary feeling to be so vulnerable, but in the end, the outcome has always been that people reach out to me having connected with it.
“
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kind of indulgence. In that way, “sad” songs can feel like prescriptions for heartache. So, when Amber Mark first tells me that her second studio album is about the ending of a long-term relationship, I imagined a sweeping journey of saccharine sadness. But Pretty Idea tells an old story in a new key. Here, she transforms her grief into something precious. “Who knew the things we’d go through would make diamonds,” she sings on “Problems,” the third to last song on the album. She mixes the traditional elements of a post-breakup retrospective with buoyant resiliency. “I love this bittersweet melancholy feeling that you can get from songs that are lyrically quite emotional but end up having some sort of up-tempo beat to it regardless,” she says. The textured instrumentals make you want to bob your head, while the echo of nostalgia in her lyrics makes the heart flutter. It’s in this contrast where Mark’s power lies.
It’s only been a year since we last heard from Mark. Her EP Loosies was the genre mashup of playful and experimental beats, which highlight her ability to create something spontaneous and fun; Pretty Idea is where a more cohesive narrative unfolds. It’s the retelling of love lost in the midst of rehabilitation. By the time you reach the titular coda “Pretty Idea,” she regains cathartic clarity. Though coated in a silky veneer, it’s her durability that’s loud and clear on the record. After all the bittersweet longing is over — songs like “Ooo” and “Sweet Serotonin” chronicle the thrill of a romantic chase — she’s remade whole on the other side.
Mark spent most of her early years traveling, living with her biological mother in places like Nepal, India, and Berlin, though New York has always been home base. Her upbringing was unconventional but part of the reason why she’s now able to adjust to the transient nature of her life as a singer. “I've chosen a career that requires so much traveling and never really being in one place for too long. I definitely see the irony in that,” she says. “It set me up to adjust to that lifestyle and accept this kind of life. It helped me to be adaptable to new and challenging situations.”
You can still hear phantom sounds of Mark’s childhood in her music today, though it has a more subtle presence than it did in her formative years as an artist. She notes her time in India as being particularly influential. “I was doing it more intentionally with the first EP because I was really talking about my time there. I wanted to use that sonically to express those feelings,” she says. “It's very much a part of who I am today.” And that sonic expression has always come naturally to her, though the idea of being a professional singer never crossed her mind. “I remember we had computer class when I was in elementary school here in New York, and we would get the option to work on these MacBooks and they had GarageBand or iMovie . . . and I would always immediately want to [use] GarageBand,” she says. She spent years making beats whenever she had access to a computer. It wouldn’t be until high school, when she was enrolled in a music program where the students essentially formed a band (“kind of School of Rock”), that she’d get her first taste of being on stage. In her early 20s, Mark found motivation to turn this innate passion into something bigger after landing an internship at a record label. There, she was enamored with the “stars” and “glitter of it all.”
Even now, the gravitational pull she originally felt for production is obvious. As her lyrical abilities sharpen, it’s her musical versatility that’s already cemented her as an artist to watch. Jazz, R&B, and pop are familiar genres she’s blended together on previous records, but Pretty Idea adds yacht rock, indie acoustics, and ’70s disco to the mix. Oftentimes, musicians will undergo individual “eras” in their careers, like maybe this album will have a heavier retro feel but next year’s will lean harder into electro-folk. Mark has bypassed those limitations since 2017.
It may be surprising to listeners that, for how unarmed she is in the booth, she can feel just as hesitant to express herself in actual conversation. It was something she specifically dealt with after her mother’s passing, and it was this grief that she worked through on the 2022 album Three Dimensions Deep. Three years later, she found herself nervous opening up about a failed relationship for Pretty Idea. “These are things that I don't really like to talk about. I tend to be quite reserved when it comes to my relationships,” she says. “It was really hard for me to get over the long, serious relationship that most of these songs are about. And I'm still in the process of getting over that.”
It's a scary feeling to be so vulnerable, but in the end, the outcome has always been that people reach out to me having connected with it.
“
In a previous interview, Mark mentioned that while making this album, she was sure to leave anxiety out of the room, which was made easier by the people in the room with her. Having worked with most of them in the past, it became significantly easier to maintain that crucial vulnerability that makes even her most energetic and sultry songs substantial. And for her art, it has always paid off. “I don't really hold back and I'm okay with that,” she says. “I'm going through very human experiences and people relate to them. It's a scary feeling to be so vulnerable, but in the end, the outcome has always been that people reach out to me having connected with it. That's a very comforting feeling.”
Mark recalls the song “The Best of You” being particularly challenging to make for this album. “Even when I was recording the vocals, I was in this emotional state,” she says. And the weight of the lyrics is palpable: “You just a lesson in love and rejection,” she sings, “wondering how I gave you the best of me, but she'll get the best of you now.” It’s not the first time you can feel her sadness on Pretty Idea, but it’s maybe her in her rawest form.
Director of Photography: Leo Hsu; Creative Director: Colleen Lennon; Senior Art Director: Meg Konigsburg; Digital Tech: Alex Kalb; Assistant: Clay Campbell; Wardrobe: Herin Choi; Wardrobe Assistant: Radhika Patel; Hair: Antionette Hill; Makeup: Mark de los Reyes; Prop Stylist: Milena Gorum; Prop Assitant: Katie Bloom; VP, Talent Partnerships & Influencer Strategy: Steven Devall; Talent Manager: Michelle Lifavi; Associate Director, Creative Services: Ariana Jiffo; Senior Creative Services Manager: Amy Wenzel; Producer: Alex Friedlander; Production Assistant: Robbie Fay
Production Credits
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Amber
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By Samantha Sasso
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