Review:
“There’s a rule in commercial pop: don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Translation? If you’re getting love on TRL, it’s best leaving well enough alone and tinkering only slightly with the sound that pays your bills.” AL “The Philly-raised songbird…made her rep with infectious and rugged pop-R&B hits like ‘There You Go’ and the remake of ‘Lady Marmalade’” AL and her “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,” STE “but like the fuchsia coif she once sported, that sound is gone.” STE “Those comparisons irked – hell, angered – Pink, and she was determined to prove she was real” STE on her next album.
“You have to give Pink a whole heap of credit.” AL On her sophomore effort, she “bared her soul [and] fought for some artistic control,” STE bringing in some big names, including Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler for a duet on one song. Also “helping Pink express her inner Alanis are Dallas Austin, who produced the” AL “sexy, swaggering arena rock redux 18 Wheeler,” STE “and former 4 Non Blonde Linda Perry, who Pink has resurrected from one-hit-wonder status,” AL and “to help her rock and write.” STE
The result was “M!ssundaztood, a title bound to never show up on Internet search engines.” STE The album sports “a more driving alt-rock attack, liberally laced with some late-night blues and heartfelt lyrics that, while they sometimes come off like diary entries (the simplistic bon mot ‘Your pain is painful’ in Family Portrait), are clearly Pink’s thoughts, as opposed to words someone put in her mouth.” ALDear Diary and My Vietnam are similarly “weird confessionals.” STE
“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.” STE “Pink’s potent vocals and her honest determination make this a risk worth hearing.” AL
“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, then 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.” STE
5.0
1.71
12.0
