Although it hardly deserved it,
Try This
--
P!nk
'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
, 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
. When faced with such a commercial disappointment, some artists would crawl back to what made them a star, but not
. 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"
is far too complex to do something so straightforward. No,
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
; 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
. 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
tunes sung with the zeal of a rocker. It's not just that
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
sounds liberated, making music that's far riskier and stranger than anything else in mainstream
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
, 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
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
will be a bigger hit than
, at least it's proof positive that there are few
musicians more exciting in the 2000s than
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine