I'm Not Dead: P!nk (Album Review)

What fascinates me, though probably it shouldn't, is the fact that many, if not most, are still waiting with baited breath for P!nk to duplicate her worldwide smash album M!ssundaztood; both in sound and in sales figures. But anyone with a genuine knowledge of P!nk's personality and work ethic should, as cliché as it may be, expect the unexpected when it comes to her and her music.

She started off as a generic R&B singer with Technicolor hair and "kiss-my-@ss" attitude on Can't Take Me Home. Then she revved up the attitude, toned down the hair color, and dabbled in pop/rocked, guitar-based R&B for her private and
confessional and catchy as all get-out sophomore release, M!ssundaztood. 16 million sold records later, she veered deeper into left field and struck an inspired balance between brilliant and obscure on album #3: Try This.

P!nk ditched the hooky pop melodies, fluorescent production, and autobiographical musings in favor of stark, feral punk/rock grooves that turned P!nk's indiscriminate rage into solid musical punch lines. But since the record intentionally detached itself from P!nk's core audience, it was met with lukewarm reviews and p!ss-poor sales.

Ironic how the conscious stroke of brilliance is always the ignored stroke of paint on the canvas, no? (even more ironic how Try This, not M!ssundaztood, was the album to earn P!nk her first solo Grammy).

But 29 months removed from the personal best and commercial worst of her career comes album #4: I'm Not Dead! And yet again, P!nk goes against the expected curve just for the hell of it.

Take, for example, the ironic lead single, Stupid Girls. From a lyrical standpoint, it's a pure protest song. In it, P!nk condemns the female spectrum of young Hollywood's social elite who take their personas and dumb them down, essentially brainwashing the impressionable youth of America into thinking that smart and sexy are oil and water.

And in comes the irony as P!nk then subtly dumbs down her own message by enlisting second-tier pop producer Billy Mann to wrap the message around a slight, reggae-tinged arrangement of pure, unabashed POP music. Easily the most radio-friendly tune on the record, P!nk basically borrows from the slated culture referenced in the song and unapologetically lampoons it all in the name of (self-proclaimed) hypocritical protest.

But make no mistake that P!nk opted for the easiest route to high-end record sales. Though she spent many studio sessions with Mann, Butch Walker and Max Martin (the mastermind behind almost every incredulous pop song in bubblegum history), I'm Not Dead is anything but your average pop/rock record.

And that is what makes Dead so refreshing. "Stupid Girls", the sneering smack-talk session titled Cuz I Can, and the über kiss-off disguised as U + Ur Hand are the only instances where the hooks instantly bite and the melodies hit you over the head. The majority of the remainder of the album is still catchy, melodic and entertaining but definitely grabs you in a more subtle, understated manner.

Who Knew sounds like the lo-fi twin sister of "Since U Been Gone" (same acoustic opening, same 4/4 drumbeat and same hushed-verse/loud-chorus blueprint) but it takes several listens before you realize both songs were cut from the same mold. The title track applies the opposite effect (loud verses, hushed choruses) to a similar effect.

Long Way To Happy sounds like a re-vamped offering of "Just Like A Pill" with it's gothic piano breaks, sporadic acoustic strums, and pounding vocal on the hook. But the vibe of suspicion and craft pulsating from the song's arrangement keeps the ear focused on the dramatic climax that never fully materializes.

And Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely) sounds like a lost jam session between The Ramones, The Cars and Cyndi Lauper; the sleek new-wave-meets-emo-meets-power-punk-meets-pop arrangement selling the song more on nostalgia than melody. And it works.

More protests come from the album centerpiece, Dear Mr. President. But unlike most other protest songs directed towards G.B., P!nk tries to simplify the situation by attempting to tap into the genuine humanitarian inside of him. P!nk picks apart the man-in-charge and his regime but puts a personable touch on her still-brutal honesty that makes the song more endearing than condescending.

Add P!nk's duet with her father, James, on the finale, I Have Seen The Rain to the list of the best protest songs from the 60s you never heard and the album itself would be complete as is.

But since P!nk drove away most of her fans with Try This' comprehensive and (mostly) impersonal lyricism, the confessional P!nk rears her head several times throughout the record to reassure her fans that she's still not quite understood.

Nobody Knows is a dramatic piano ballad which features P!nk's pained vocal eulogizing the loss of her inner voice and subsequent direction in life, Runaway is a touching glimpse in P!nk's troubled childhood years that sounds lifted out of any mid-80s teen drama flick about Gen-X'ers rebelling against authority, and the stark and painfully vivid description of Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self serves as the light at the end of P!nk's tunnel.

Allowing her to gain closure with herself, she travels back in time to relive those painful memories only to assure herself that she will survive. Another artistic stroke of brilliance.

The album only falters when P!nk tries her hand at coffeehouse country rock (The One That Got Away), or tries to wax philosophic over dreary, R&B grooves (I Got Money Now).

But those quibbles aside, I'm Not Dead! is P!nk's battle-cry to the industry that she is still wrecking shop and taking names. She'll continue to not live up to the expectations that preface her nor will she ever fully realize the artistic potential that she possesses.

But she will continue to give pop music an understated level of substance and depth that has been severely lacking since before the induction of her career. P!nk might be an endangered species as far as pop relevance goes but she's far from extinct.