Mandy Moore finds her own path to success

She moved 7 million discs worldwide - not too shabby - singing pleasant pop rock ditties in a strong, sweet, emotive voice.

The critics were rarely kind, though, to Mandy Moore during her years as a teen pop recording star turning out bubbilicious ditties like "Candy" and "I Wanna Be With You."

And neither, in retrospect, is Moore to herself.

Now 23, the singer and actress has apologized for her past recordings, even offered to buy back copies (well, not all of them) of her first two albums. In our recent chat, Moore characterized that music as "second fiddle . . . it didn't measure up to other stuff coming out in the late '90s."

Moore is hoping we'll give her another listen, however, with her new and surprisingly good album, "Wild Hope." It's a coming-of-age, singer/songwriter project in which she's invested more than two years of creative effort and personal emotion.

She's also hoping we'll come check her out in concert at the Keswick Theatre on Thursday, as Moore and her band hold forth in the opening slot for Paula Cole - another striking voice, highly regarded, now on the comeback trail.

"I never got to play the intimate, mid-size theaters back in the day," Moore mused in our recent chat. "I went straight from mall shows to opening act in arenas for Backstreet Boys. Now being able to see the audience and, shockingly, see people already singing along with my new songs, is just so much fun!"

Moore ran in (but never with) the girly pop pack that included Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. The youngest of the bunch, she got her recording contract at 15 and cut her first album at 16.

"Of course, others imposed their creative will on me - and rightfully so," she recalled. "I was a kid. I didn't know what kind of music I wanted to be singing."

Up to that point, her major performing experiences had been in high school musicals and doing the national anthem at sporting events in her hometown of Orlando, Fla., which is how she was discovered and signed to Epic.

But it soon became clear, especially watching her host her own show on MTV, that Moore was a whole lot smarter than your average teenybop supa-star.

By the time she was making her third album, "Mandy Moore," she was challenging the A&R (artist and repertoire) guys when they brought her songs to sing about, say, loving shoes. Yuk!

And for her fourth album, "Coverage," Moore demanded that the label let her challenge her image and audience with a set of classic covers from the 1970s and '80s - by real-deal artists like Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens and Carole King - that had influenced her and with which she, in turn, hoped to influence others.

But Epic didn't really "Have a Little Faith in Me" (a John Hiatt song also on the set). No hit singles came out of the album, and Moore's contract with the label was allowed to lapse.

Fortunately, she had the movie thing to fall back on. After her bit-part debut acting and singing in "The Princess Diaries," Moore get to break a lot of hearts as a tragic, idealistic heroine in 2002's "A Walk to Remember." She followed that with lighter romantic comedies like "How To Deal" and "Chasing Liberty."

More recently, Moore has played against type in the daring religious satire "Saved!" and as a darkly willful "American Idol" wannabe in "American Dreamz."

She also made TV appearances on "Scrubs" and had a hot thing going for a long while with show star Zach Braff.

Last year she broke Vince's heart in a five-episode arc on HBO's "Entourage." (Bring her back, producers!)

This year, it seems like Moore has been popping up in a new movie every three months, including "Because I Said So" (opposite Diane Keaton) and this summer's "License to Wed" (co-starring John Krasinski and Robin Williams).

Still to come are "Southland Tales" and her personal fave, "Dedication," an indie dramedy co-starring Billy Crudup, Diane Wiest and Tom Wilkinson that got picked up by the Weinstein Co. after scoring at Sundance.

The multi-talented Moore also has a hand in fashion with her clothing line Mblem, which is one reason she pops up often on the cover of magazines like Elle, Jane, Seventeen, In Style and Cosmopolitan.

But for the foreseeable future, she swears, Moore will be digging into her reinvented music career, this time as an intimate, caring singer-composer sharing her aspirations and romantic setbacks.

Yes, many of the songs do seem to be about her breakup with Braff, though she's way too polite (and savvy) to say so for sure.

Moore originally linked up with the Warner Music Group's Sire label to produce this project, then found "we weren't on the same page. I wanted to be part of the writing process, part of the great singer/songwriter tradition here in L.A. But their idea was to bring in writers who work with everyone - great and ridiculously talented people who'd come in and play me some songs that I could then add 'a couple of lyrics to.' I wasn't interested in that."

So Moore walked away from the deal, hooked up independently with producer John Alagia (of John Mayer, Dave Matthews and Smashing Pumpkins fame) and more compatible collaborators - the Weepies, Rachel Yamagata and Lori McKenna - who would prove adept at converting her diary notes and lyrics into finished goods.

Last fall, she recorded the project in a picture-perfect studio/residence in mythical Woodstock, N.Y., where talents like Bob Dylan, the Band and Van Morrison used to feel the muse.

"Getting away and recording there was the best experience I've ever had in my life, better than any movie project," she said.

Oh, and Moore's gotten her management company to put out the disc under the custom imprint Firm Music, distributed by EMI.

"Thanks to the film exposure, I don't really need a big music machine promoting my cause," Moore figures. "In this day and age, you can do it all online, on sites like MySpace and iTunes. That's frankly where I buy all my music, too."

Moore's new tunes have a substantial, folk-rock earthiness that feels timeless, honest and true. Stylistically, the work hints occasionally of Joni Mitchell (check out the keyboard vamp in the lead track, "Extraordinary") and Stevie Nicks-fronting Fleetwood Mac in the percolating anthems "Slummin' in Paradise" and "Looking Forward to Looking Back."

That's great company to be keeping, by my book. *

Keswick Theatre, Easton Road and Keswick Avenue, Glenside, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, $32-$38, 215-572-7650, www.keswicktheatre.com.