P!nk Album: “I'm Not Dead [Clean]”

I remember reading an article when Pink was recalling the mini-disaster that was Try This, and how she knew she was spitting out really lackluster songs (save for Catch Me When I'm Sleeping). Pink has really made up for that by releasing I'm Not Dead. Each and every song has Pink's personality all over it, and if you like it, you won't be disappointed. From Pink's radio-driven Stupid Girls, where she attacks our society and its adjoined stupidity, to the thoughtful, convicting "Dear Mr. President", which is deep enough to make the strongest Republican melt. I'm glad that Pink wrote that song and didn't portray herself as an "in-your-face know-it-all". But she is very educated, and it comes through in an honest attempt to put all the jokes and the sneering aside and really face the issues that plague our country.

Through listening to the latter song, as well as "Conversations with My 13 Year Old Self", "Runaway", "The One That Got Away" and "Long Way to Happy", Pink's songwriting chops have obviously gotten stronger, and their muscles are flexed throughout the CD. One cannot help but stop and rewind certain phrases - her honesty leaves her vulnerable, but she has put herself and her opinions out there on the table, and it's up to the listener to take it or leave it. But it's not debatable that Pink has bared her soul on this record.

It's been a long time since the industry has really come face-to-face with such a poignant, fun, thought-provoking album. Classic? It's way too early to tell, but it definitely has the makeup to be one.

I LOVE THIS ALBUM. OK, so I can't play all of it around my 5 year old or at work...details. I heard clips of her previous work and wasn't all that impressed but this one I have to play over and over. I love "Leave me alone I'm lonely" (does any married woman not feel that way sometime?), the song with her dad makes me weepy, the attitude on some songs is so fun but mostly the girl can write and she THINKS and there's just something very real about her and she touches something very honest in me. I bought it for "Dear Mr. President" and I'm glad I did. I love this.

I'm old and not really into the pop scene. I saw P!nk on Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards and didn't really understand the song and just thought "oh great, now my 5 year old boy has a song to sing about not wanting to be a stupid girl" I put her in my little box where I put the other teeny bopper rockers, you know, the Avril Lavignes and Ashlee Simpsons of the world.

Then I saw her on Oprah (which I also don't usually watch) and they were discussing the discussion thats been started by the song. And she impressed me...not typical...smart girl. And then I heard a clip of Dear Mr. President and thought "she's really ok" and then I heard she recorded it with the Indigo Girls I took notice. (I'm an Indigo Girls fan). I'm glad I did. Its been a long time since I've been excited about an album.

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.

`I'm not dead' sees Pink returning in her angry rock chick persona, first heard on her breakthrough sophomore disc `M!ssundaztood' on which she finally came into her own. If you loved the hits `Just like a pill', and `Don't let me get me', then you'll love this CD.

Lead off single and opening cut is the ska inflected `Stupid girls' which pokes fun at the obsession with being skinny, with lyrics like `They travel in packs of two or three/with their itsy bitsy doggies & their teeny-weeny tees'; Paris Hilton anyone?

`Who knew' is a mid tempo rocker about the shocking (to her) end of a relationship. It starts off gentle with acoustic guitar, which builds up to a catchy rocking chorus, a format much of the disc follows.

Other standouts are `Long way to happy', `Runaway' (a melancholic tale of a runaway), the introspective `Conversations with my 13 year old self', the Joan Jett like `Cuz I can', and the awesome angry dance rocker `U & Ur hand'.

For ballads, there's the lovely soulful `I got money now', and the acoustic almost folk protest song `Dear Mr. President' questioning Mr. President about poverty, homelessness, war, and gay rights. It has faint Alanis Morissette overtones. Closing is a hidden acoustic track; `I have seen the rain' which is a duet with her father who penned it while in Vietnam.

There isn't a single dull/weak track on this disc. Yet another superb offering from Pink.

Pink had been on a haitus since the Mizunderstood album. "Try This" was a failed experiment, and Pink pretty much disappeared from the charts for a number of years. Pink went back to what worked for her in the past, a more pop oriented sound, with catchy hooks. It worked this time around, more so than it has ever done. During the "Try This" album, Pink started cursing for the first time and continues the trend with this album. I like it. It shows the type of person she really is, which is a no holds barred, strong female type of individual. She's her own person, and does what she wants to do, regardless of outside influence.