Amber Mark — a New York–based singer, songwriter, and producer — delivers on her second studio album, Pretty Idea, released October 10, 2025. Raised across Europe and Asia, Mark pulls from a wide spectrum of global sounds to create a genre-blurring tapestry that reveals new layers with each listen. Her ability to write and produce all her own music gives the album a rare creative cohesion, deepening its emotional pull. Pretty Idea arrives alongside a trio of music videos (“Don’t Remind Me,” “Sweet Serotonin,” and “Let Me Love You”), behind‑the‑scenes footage, and visualizers that expand the album into a full sensory experience.
“Sweet Serotonin” recalls the breezy inventiveness of Still Woozy. In the second verse, Mark’s voice takes on a raspier edge as the track pivots into an unexpected groove — a clever switch-up that reinvigorates the song and lingers after it ends.
“Cherry Reds” was the immediate standout for me. I listened to it eight times straight on my first full playthrough. It gave me the same feeling I had when I heard “Space Song” by Beach House for the first time — like I needed to close my eyes and just let the emotion hit.
Other notable tracks include “Too Much,” whose lyricism nods to Alicia Keys and Usher’s “My Boo,” the gut‑punch heartbreak of “Best of Me,” and the exasperated defiance of “Problems,” which quickly became my new eldest daughter anthem.
“Writing as a vehicle to understand myself,” Mark explained, describing how she writes and produces all her own music. That sense of self‑possession bleeds through every part of this album — especially visually.
The video for “Let Me Love You” is set up like an audition, with a parade of hopefuls vying for Mark’s attention. In the end, she’s captivated by the one person who doesn’t even show up — a neat metaphor for unreciprocated desire. Mark has said she envisioned the visuals of this album as rooted in ’70s and ’80s nostalgia, pulling from yacht rock and vintage aesthetics to build a distinct world around the music.
She executes this most strikingly in the video for “Don’t Remind Me,” featuring Anderson .Paak. “Baby you made a waste of me,” she sings. “Foolish to think I’d be really over this.” He sees things differently: “Constantly follow me, haunting and calling me … Honestly, I can’t think logically when you keep popping up / Like, ‘Hi AP!’ How are you finding me?” While their perspectives playfully differ, they unite effortlessly on the dreamy chorus.
Visually, the video is a surreal, cinematic world directed by Olivia de Camps (LISA, Tyla, Rebecca Black). It follows Mark as she crashes an ex’s wedding in a nursing home, MC’d by the glamorous Carmen Electra. .Paak eventually joins the chaos, and the result is something between a musical, a fever dream, and a psychodrama.
The video borrows heavily from mid‑century aesthetics — red velvet curtains, chandeliers, fur coats, and leopard prints — but everything is pushed slightly off balance. Scenes are composed like moving paintings: symmetrical, deliberate, and richly textured. There’s a theatricality to every gesture, a camp sensibility that adds both humor and commentary. A mop bucket dance in a floral hallway, an interrogation lit like a noir film, a towering wedding cake onstage — each set piece plays with the tension between performance and vulnerability.
Like the work of Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia (Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” A$AP Rocky’s “Tailor Swif”), the “Don’t Remind Me” video doesn’t just mirror the song; it builds a parallel narrative world. It’s part noir, part cabaret, part heartbreak spectacle.
As the title track draws the record to a close, Mark admits the love she’s been chasing was only ever a “pretty idea.” Pretty Idea embodies a mirage — its sound is lush and seductive, but its emotional core remains elusive. It brings to mind how cigarette smoke drifting through a New York winter can seem beautiful, even though the reality behind the image is far less romantic. At just under 40 minutes, Pretty Idea is a cohesive, emotionally complex body of work that delivers on the high expectations set since 2022’s Three Dimensions Deep.
