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Pink

 

Biography by Steve Huey

 

Although she was initially viewed as yet another face in the late-'90s crowd of teen pop acts, Pink quickly showed signs of becoming one of the rare artists to transcend and outgrow the label. Born Alecia Moore on September 8, 1979, in Doylestown, PA (near Philadelphia), Pink received her nickname as a child (it had nothing to do with her later shade of hair dye). She grew up in a musical family and by age 13 was a regular on the Philadelphia club scene, first as a dancer, then as a backing vocalist for the local hip-hop group Schools of Thought. At 14, she began writing her own songs; the same year, a local DJ at Club Fever began allowing her on-stage to sing a song every Friday.

 

Pink was spotted one night by an executive for MCA, who asked her to audition for an R&B group called Basic Instinct; although she got the gig, the group imploded not long after. She was quickly recruited for a female R&B trio called Choice, which signed to L.A. Reid and Babyface's LaFace label on the strength of their demo; however, they too disbanded due to differences over musical direction. During Choice's brief studio time, producer Daryl Simmons asked Pink to write a bridge section for the song "Just to Be Loving You"; impressed with the results, Pink rediscovered her songwriting muse and an equally impressed L.A. Reid soon gave her a solo deal with LaFace.

 

Pink recorded her solo debut, Can't Take Me Home, with a variety of songwriting partners and dance-pop and R&B producers. Released in 2000, the album was a double-platinum hit; it spun off three Top Ten singles in "There U Go," "Most Girls," and "You Make Me Sick." She toured that summer as the opening act for *N Sync, but soon found herself tired of being pigeonholed as strictly a teen act despite her sassy, forthright persona. As she set about working on her follow-up album, Pink took part in the remake of Patti LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade" featured on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which also featured powerhouse divas Christina Aguilera, Mya, and Lil' Kim. The song was a massive hit, topping the charts in both the U.S. and U.K.

 

Toward the end of the year, Pink released her next single, "Get the Party Started"; it became her biggest, most inescapable hit to date, climbing into the Top Five. Her accompanying sophomore album, M!ssundaztood, quickly went double platinum; it boasted a more personal voice and a more eclectic sound, plus heavy contributions from ex-4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry, who helped bring some more rock muscle to Pink's sound (as did guest appearances by Steven Tyler and Richie Sambora). M!ssundaztood attracted positive critical notices as well, and its second single, "Don't Let Me Get Me," became another fast-rising Top Ten hit.

 

Pink next issued Try This in November 2003. The album was a bit more rock-oriented, due in part to the songwriting collaboration of Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong on eight of the album's tracks. Try This' lead single, "Trouble," cracked into the upper regions of Billboard's Top 40, and earned Pink a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. On the home front, Pink wed motocross racer Carey Hart — whom she had initially met at 2001's X-Games — on January 7, 2006, in Costa Rica. Her next album, I'm Not Dead, appeared that April; its first single, "Stupid Girls," quickly became a hit, and the album reached the Top Ten.

 

 

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Can't Take Me Home (Apr 4, 2000)

4 Stars (8 out of 10)

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

It may be hard to listen to Pink's debut album Can't Take Me Home without hearing TLC, specifically their 1999 album Fanmail. After all, L.A. Reid and Babyface were the executive producers for both albums, and they decided to use a skittering, post-jungle rhythm for the bedrock of these savvy, club-ready dance-pop productions — a sound exploited expertly on TLC's record. If Can't Take Me Home pales next to Fanmail, it's not Pink's fault, nor is it because the album is sub-par; it's simply because it follows in the footsteps of a record that's as close to a modern classic as contemporary soul gets. Judged as its own entity, Pink's debut is quite strong, even if it isn't perfect. The production is masterminded by Babyface and LA Reid, who oversee such producers as Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, Terence "Tramp-Baby" Abney, Daryl Simmons, and Tricky (not to be confused with the dark trip-hop genius, of course), and throughout this album, their work sparkles, from the deft layers of drum machines to the sultriness of the slow grooves. For the most part, Pink's performances match that production — she may not be able to deliver ballads with assurance and soul just yet, but she never over-sings. She also not only has an appealing voice, but displays a fair amount of chops. So, with the production and performances in place, that leaves just the songs. While there are no bad cuts on Can't Take Me Home, there aren't any knock-out punches, either. They're all fairly well-crafted, but they're more ingratiating than immediate, and if dance-pop should be anything, it should be indelible upon at least the second listen, if not the first. Many of the songs on Can't Take Me Home need a few spins before they truly sink in, which is a bit unfortunate. Still, it's not the worst situation in the world, either, especially since a lot of the tunes actually do make an impression with repeated plays. So, Can't Take Me Home doesn't really escape many of the pitfalls of a debut, but thanks to LA Reid and Babyface's production and Pink's engaging talents, it's a promising first effort all the same.

 

 

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M!ssundaztood (Nov 20, 2001)

4.5 Stars

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

Pink's debut album was a promising collection of dance-pop, easily lumped into the teen pop boon of 2000 since she was young and sang over savvy, skittering club beats. Those comparisons irked — hell, angered — Pink, and she was determined to prove she was real with her second album. So she called up her idol, Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes fame, to help her rock and write; bared her soul; fought for some artistic control; brought in Steven Tyler; and wound up with M!ssundaztood, a title bound to never show up on Internet search engines. This all sounds like the script for a VH1 movie, but the wild thing is that M!ssundaztood not only works, it works smashingly — a bewildering amalgam of sounds and attitudes that shouldn't fit together, but defy all odds and do. This record bubbles over with imagination, as hooky pop songs like the title track rub shoulders with glitzy dancefloor anthems like "Get the Party Started" and sexy, swaggering arena rock redux like "18 Wheeler" before delving into weird confessionals like "Family Portrait," "Dear Diary," and "My Vietnam." Forget that this isn't what anybody would have expected Pink to do; it's hard to imagine anybody else that would have the idea and the inclination to blend late-'80s, metal-spiked album rock with modern hip-hop and dance, then dress it up with dazzling modern pop production, all the while not avoiding painful subjects (particularly her dysfunctional family) or melody. If that's not an artistic statement, I don't know what is, and the damn thing is there hasn't been a record in the mainstream this vibrant or this alive in a long, long time.

 

 

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Try This (Nov 11, 2003)

4 Stars

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

Of all the dance-pop/teen pop singers to emerge in 1999, Pink seemed the least likely to have success. She didn't have an easy-to-market image like Britney or Christina, nor were her singles all that distinctive, so it was a real shock when she reinvented herself as a badass dance-rock chick for her second album, M!ssundaztood. It wasn't just that the album revealed a unique, forceful personality; it was that it crafted an original, dynamic sound from seemingly contradictory sources, as Pink hauled out forgotten 4 Non Blondes leader Linda Perry for her primary collaborator, piled on the hard rock riffs, and sharpened up the R&B rhythms, while writing as nakedly as a confessional singer/songwriter. It was a big surprise that Pink had an album like M!ssundaztood in her, but that surprise is nearly equalled by its successor, Try This, which proves that she can pull off the same trick twice — an unpredictable giant leap forward, assisted by unlikely collaborators, that winds up being among the best pop music of its given year. While Perry is still around, she only collaborates on three tracks, since Pink has picked another left-field choice for her main co-writer/producer for Try This: Tim Armstrong, one of the lead singer/songwriters for the acclaimed neo-punk band Rancid. Armstrong co-writes and produces eight of the 13 songs here, and while it's true that he helps steer Pink into harder-rocking territory, the end result isn't quite as simple as Try This being a straight-up rock & roll album. Instead, hard rock is used as the foundation for the record (even some of the Perry-written tracks rock very hard), and then it stretches out into several different styles and sounds. Some are familiar — there's a handful of dance-oriented tracks, a quiet ballad, such as the closer, "Love Song" — but, like M!ssundaztood, this is pop music that knows no boundaries, borrowing ideas from punk, soul, ska, new wave, and electronica to create an exhilarating listen that crackles with energy and inventiveness. This music has reference points, some intentional and some not — the similarities of "Trouble" and Nirvana's cover of the Vaselines' "Molly's Lips" may be on purpose, but the echoes of Blur's "Pressure on Julian" on "God Is a DJ" is surely coincidental — but it's presentation is original and exceptionally well-written. This time around, she's not as consciously confessional, which makes for a nice fit for Armstrong's strong sense of songcraft and pop hooks, resulting in music that is immediately grabbing yet so sturdily crafted it only seems stronger, even catchier, with repeated listens. While Pink's peers take incremental, cautious artistic steps forward, she's slyly fearless, choosing the right collaborators that help her create pop music that has both style and substance to spare. Britney Spears, Pink's avowed arch-nemesis, may claim that she's taking advice from Madonna, but here Pink illustrates that she's the true heir to Madonna's throne, since she displays a restlessness similar to the Material Girl in the '80s, while never once sounding like Madonna — or other spiritual predecessors like Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, or Debbie Harry, for that matter. With Try This, Pink has firmly established a voice of her own, and in doing so, she's made another tremendous modern pop record.

 

 

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I'm Not Dead (Apr 4, 2006)

4.5 Stars

 

 

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

 

Although it hardly deserved it, Try This — Pink's 2003 sequel to her 2001 artistic and commercial breakthrough, M!ssundaztood — turned out to be something of a flop, selling considerably less than its predecessor and generating no true hit singles. Perhaps this downturn in sales was due to the harder rock direction she pursued on Try This, perhaps the songs she co-wrote with Rancid's Tim Armstrong weren't quite pop even if they were poppy, perhaps it was just a matter of timing, but the album just didn't click with a larger audience, through no fault of the music, which was the equal to that on M!ssundaztood. When faced with such a commercial disappointment, some artists would crawl back to what made them a star, but not Pink. Although she does pump up the dance on 2006's I'm Not Dead, it's way too simple to call the album a return to "Get the Party Started" — Pink is far too complex to do something so straightforward. No, Pink is complicated, often seemingly contradictory: she tears down "porno paparazzi girls" like Paris Hilton just as easily as she flaunts her bling on "'Cuz I Can"; she celebrates that "I Got Money Now"; she'll swagger and snarl and swear like a sailor, then turn around and write sweet songs of support to a teenager, or a knowingly melancholy reflection like "I Got Money Now"; she'll collaborate with Britney Spears hitmaker Max Martin on one track, then turn around and bring in the Indigo Girls for support on a stripped-down protest song. She'll try anything, and she does on I'm Not Dead. It Ping-Pongs between dense dancefloor anthems and fuzzy power pop, acoustic folk-rock and anthemic power ballads, hard rock tunes powered by electronic beats and dance tunes sung with the zeal of a rocker. It's not just that Pink tries a lot of different sounds, it's that she seizes the freedom to hurl insults at both George W. Bush and a sleazoid who tried to pick her up at a bar, or to end a chorus with a chant of "Ice cream, ice cream/We all want ice cream." Far from sounding cow-towed by the reaction to Try This, Pink sounds liberated, making music that's far riskier and stranger than anything else in mainstream pop in 2006. And it's a testament to her power as both a musician and a persona that for this record, even though she's working with singer/songwriter Butch Walker, Max Martin, and Teddy Geiger's cohort, Billy Mann — her most mainstream collaborators since LA Reid and Babyface helmed her 2000 debut, Can't Take Me Home — she sounds the strangest she ever has, and that's a positively thrilling thing to hear. That's because she not only sounds strange, she sounds stronger as a writer and singer, as convincing when she's singing the bluesy, acoustic "The One That Got Away" as when she's taunting and teasing on "Stupid Girls" or "U + Ur Hand" or when she's singing a propulsive piece of pure pop like "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)." In other words, she sounds complex: smart, funny, sexy, catchy, and best of all, surprising and unpredictable. This is the third album in a row where she's thrown a curve ball, confounding expectations by delivering a record that's wilder, stronger, and better than the last. And while that's no guarantee that I'm Not Dead will be a bigger hit than Try This, at least it's proof positive that there are few pop musicians more exciting in the 2000s than Pink.

 

 

 

Thanks. Great read.

Looks very good!!!

Wow, really positive reviews. Thanks for posting.

 

I agree about I'm Not Dead. Her vocals and songwriting are a lot stronger on this album.