P!nk: Heartbreak is a motherf*cker

Thursday, 30 October 2008 07:10

The late 1990’s/ early 2000’s represented a “good” era for pop music.  It spawned many of today’s biggest pop acts: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, and P!nk, among others. Of the whole bunch, most of them opted to stay inside the pop stratosphere, while others decided to explore other terrains.  Alecia Moore, famously known as P!nk took quite an unexpected path.  While she always sported a badass attitude, it didn’t quite connect with her dancey/ hip-hopish/ bubblegum pop tunes from her first couple of albums.  For her third album “Try This” le dejó claro a todos que eso del bubblegum pop was not the real her- she teamed up with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and presented a rock tinged album that earned her a Grammy but poor sells.  For her follow-up album “I’m Not Dead” she kept her rocker chic attitude but this time decided to throw a couple catchy hooks here and there.  Now with “Funhouse”, P!nk is back with a broken heart but with plenty of attitude, emotion and songs to rock the shiz out of everyone. 

Heartbreak and depression seem to bring the best out of most creative individuals- let it be in painting, sculpture, writing or music.

For once, an artists’ personal life is somewhat relative to its work. That’s the case with P!nk and her latest album.  You don’t need to get all the skinny behind her divorce to get that this is a break-up album.

“Funhouse” is perhaps P!nk’s most raw and personal album to date, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheesy and sappy like other break-up albums.  The contrast between the dark and emotional lyrics and the rock-tinged music are well crafted and work to the musician’s advantage.

Because she used most of the album as a way to express her emotions and “let it all out”, she wanted to title the album “Heartbreak Is A Motherfucker”, but fearing poor record sales, the label denied the name and thus the album is now titled “Funhouse”.

Funhouse

If you’re expecting to find some bubblegum pop based on the producers that have worked on this album you’re in for some disappointment.  Sure Max Martin, Danja, Tony Kanal and Billy Mann are all directly associated to plastic pop music; however they switched gears while working on P!nk’s “Funhouse”.

Sometimes the lyrics might seem childish and even dim-witted in songs like “So What” and “Bad Influence”- but the thing is that while they come off catch pop/rock-ish, P!nk doesn’t take herself too serious while singing them which gives them a certain edge… plus they’re extremely catchy. 

“Sober” has been voted by many to be the best song in the whole album.  It is indeed a beautiful, well written and superbly produced song.  

P!nk goes from cranky, to happy, to depressed, to utterly pissed off.  She has some vulnerable moments in songs like “Glitter In The Air” and other WTF?!-did-she-just-say that? moments in songs like the title track “Funhouse” where she threatens to “burn this f*cker down”. 

P!nk has shown that heartbreak is indeed a motherf*cker, but if you channel the emotions and energy in the right direction you can make the best out of the shittiest situations. 

Funhouse Outstanding Traxx: Sober, Please Don’t Leave Me, Glitter In The Air, Bad Influence, So What, Mean.