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Pink
I'm Not Dead
(Sony-BMG)
Pink's albums have benefitted from some effective collaborations from Tim Armstrong and Linda Perry, so what happens when she leaves the punks and rockers behind for Top 40 pop gurus like Billy Mann (Jessica Simpson, Michael Bolton) and Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne)?
Well, not much. The music may be slightly more club-friendly, but Pink is no more interested in boy-meets-girl, style-over-substance chart toppers than before.
The songs' glittery exteriors are frequently wrapped around countervailing lyrics, starting with the pop-tart bitchslap of Stupid Girls, a catchy indictment of women who use their looks to get ahead (not that it stops her from flashing some butt cleavage on the CD case's reverse). For most other popular artists I Got Money Now would be a celebration of bling, whereas Pink muses on the timeless notion that cash does not equal happiness.
The album boasts a sentimental streak: The relatively spare Who Knew memorializes a long lost lover, and the piano pop verses of Long Way To Happy and Nobody Knows would be at home in a Celine Dion song. The One That Got Away is underpinned by a melancholy acoustic guitar.
She also takes a few swipes at stupid men with a brief diversion into topicality featuring The Indigo Girls on Dear Mr. President. As social commentary goes, it lacks the staying power of the album's Runaway.
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In a more upbeat vein (at least musically), there's the disco-driven 'Cuz I Can and Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely), which features an energetic beat, a conflicted protaganist, and some 1980s guitar jangle. Lecherous nightclubbers get their faces slapped in U + Ur Hand, which features a NERD-like guitar figure.
The album concludes with a hidden track, I Have Seen the Rain, written by and performed with her Vietnam vet father James Moore, which will likely be most of her fans' first exposure to protest folk music.
Track Listing:
1. Stupid Girls
2. Who Knew
3. Long Way To Happy
4. Nobody Knows
5. Dear Mr. President (Featuring Indigo Girls)
6. I'm Not Dead
7. 'Cuz I Can
8. Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)
9. U + Ur Hand
10. Runaway
11. The One That Got Away
12. I Got Money Now
13. Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self
14. I Have Seen The Rain (Featuring James T. Moore)