P!nk
P!nk has never been afraid to speak her mind, bare her soul, and share her deepest feelings in her songs. As she casually confers, "I have no choice. It's what I do." Indeed, it is what P!nk does. And, her 23 million in album sales, two Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards, and eight top 10 hit singles are proof that the tattooed badass with the heart of a pussycat does what she does well. Very well. But, with her fifth studio album, Funhouse (Oct. 28 via LaFace/Zomba), P!nk gets even more personal, more exposed, and more revealing.
"This is my most vulnerable album to date," says P!nk, 29, who has no problem fessing up to the fact that the split from her husband, motocross star Carey Hart, earlier this year is the subject of some songs on Funhouse. "On my first record, Can't Take Me Home (2000), I was pissed off at a guy and that was cathartic for me. M!ssundaztood (2001) was very personal and even more cathartic. I remember talking about the song 'Family Portrait' in interviews and just crying. Each record got a little deeper and more cathartic than the last. In two years I will probably have worked through all of my issues."
But, for now, one issue that P!nk is still working through is heartbreak. "Heartbreak is a Motherf***er is what I originally wanted to name the album," laughs the singer. "But this album is not all about that. It's not just a breakup album. There is a lot of that, but there is fun happening too and that's why I named it Funhouse in the end."
P!nk admits that it felt as "scary" as it felt "great" to reach new depths of vulnerability on such tracks as "Please Don't Leave Me," a painfully honest love song disguised by upbeat, cheerful, and happy instrumentation with sing-along "da da da da"s in the background, and "I Don't Believe You," the heart-wrenching ballad featuring P!nk's raw vocals over simple piano and strings. (Both songs were co-written with Max Martin.)
"It's like letting down the armor and admitting I'm human. I'm a girl. We all want to be loved and love. That's all we want," she explains. "'Please Don't Leave Me' is also kind of funny though. It's like, 'Okay, I'm an a**hole, but love me anyway.' I'm trying to be better. We're all a work in progress. And, 'I Don't Believe You' is one of my favorite songs because it's just so naked. It's like taking a deep breathe and saying, 'Here I am. Take me. Take your best shot.' 'Mean' is a country-Aerosmith-rock song that asks, 'How did we get so mean?' Everything starts out so yummy. 'Where did we lose the plot? How is it that you once were holding the door for me and now I'm slamming it in your face?'"
P!nk also pulls no punches tackling the breakup issue on the first single, the infectious pop-rocker "So What," which hit No. 1 on The Billboard Hot 100 on September 18, 2008 making it the singer's first No. 1 solo hit song in her career. (She previously shared the top spot on the Hot 100 with Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, and Mya on 2001's "Lady Marmalade" from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack.)
On "So What," P!nk gets real once again but this time it's infused with her trademark humor as evidenced by such funny-honest lyrics as "I guess I just lost my husband/I don't know where he went/So I'm gonna drink my money/I'm not gonna pay his rent." Having her ex, Carey Hart, in the Dave Meyers-directed video diffused some of the reaction to the lyrical content. "At first I was kind of irked because everyone was like, 'Well, wait. I thought the split was amicable and now she's talking s*** about him?! What the f***?' It's hypocritical.' But once everyone saw the video and saw that Carey was in it, it shut everybody up, which was lovely," explains P!nk, who collaborated with Martin once again for this track. "Carey hadn't heard the song before he did the video. That's how much he trusts and loves me. He pretty much just rolls his eyes, throws his hands up in the air, and hugs me. He gets it. He gets me. It's nice."
Although P!nk expanded her emotional and musical horizons on this new collection, the one song she is most proud of is "Crystal Ball," an acoustic guitar ballad written with Billy Mann, who worked on such past hits as "Stupid Girls," "Dear Mr. President," and "I'm Not Dead," among others. "I am proud of the songwriting, melody, and vocals on that song," she says. "I recorded it in one take and we didn't mix it. It just went straight to master. It was all about a vibe and not about perfection or being polished. I just love that song and I loved recording it. Me and Billy got in a room and lit some candles, had some wine, and threw up a guitar mike and two vocal mikes and just went with it."
Other revealing tracks include "It's All Your Fault," in which she proclaims in the lyrics "I conjure up the thought of being gone, but I'd probably even do that wrong." While in "Glitter in the Air," P!nk asks a lot of questions such as, "Have you ever looked fear in the face and said I just don't care?" and "Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?" P!nk admits, "I still don't have some of the answers to the questions I pose on this record. I'm still figuring it all out."
But as P!nk said, Funhouse isn't just a breakup album. "Bad Influence" (written with Billy Mann and Butch Walker) is a straight up rock chick party song that makes no apologies for wilding out with your gal pals once in a while. "I'm with the Hindus on that one," laughs P!nk. "Pleasure for pleasure's sake is not a guilty sin." "Sober" is another song that has nothing to do with heartbreak. It's a dark ditty with strings about how one wishes they could be fearless and lose their inhibitions without having a vice.
The bluesy "One Foot Wrong" is about an acid trip gone bad. "I used to be into a lot of crazy s***," says P!nk. "Acid's the most awful drug ever. Don't take it. But, that song is also about losing control and how easy it is to lose the plot in life and teeter on the edge." Meanwhile, "Ave Mary A" takes on the world and social issues, asking for help in letting go from "the chaos around me" and dealing with a "world gone mad."
As for the title, Funhouse, P!nk explains, "I look at life like a carnival. Clowns are supposed to be happy, but they are really scary. Carnivals are supposed to be fun, but really they are kind of creepy. But, we go and we buy cotton candy and we force our laughter and we get on rides and we strap ourselves in and we do it. And that's like life to me, and love. Love is supposed to be fun, but it can sometimes be really scary. And the funhouse mirrors that make you look so distorted that you don't recognize yourself and you ask yourself, 'How did I get here? How do I get out of here?' But, you think that you want to do it again. That is the same as love and life. It's a metaphor for being in love and for life."
The title track itself is a funky rocker with the fists-in-the-air refrain of "This used to be our funhouse/But now it's full of evil clowns/It's time to start the countdown/I'm gonna burn it down." "It's about when the box you're in doesn't fit anymore, burn that f***er down and start a new one," says P!nk. "This was the first song I did with Tony Kanal of No Doubt and his writing partner Jimmy Harry. I fell in love with working with them. We wrote fun f***ing songs together. We did 'Funhouse' and 'Sober.'"
P!nk stepped out of her comfort zone in the recording of Funhouse by working away from her usual stomping grounds of Los Angeles and New York for the first time. She recorded "One Foot Wrong," a bluesy slow-cooked rocker showcasing the grittier side of the singer's vocal talents, with British musician/writer/producer Eg White (Francis Anthony "Eg" White, who has worked on No. 1 albums by British singers Duffy and Adele) in his home studio in London. And, she headed to Stockholm, Sweden to work with Max Martin, who previously co-penned such hits as "Who Knew," "U + Ur Hand," and "Cuz I Can" from 2006's I'm Not Dead.
"It was really good to get out of my house and get away from my life. No distractions. No phones," explains P!nk of her overseas sessions. "It was my first time working with Eg White and I just adore him. He's eccentric and messy and f***ing awesome. We worked in his basement while his wife would be cooking dinner upstairs with their three babies and I just loved it. It was really inspiring and a great change of pace – different people, different energy."
With its mix of sad, thoughtful love songs and fun, upbeat, feisty rock anthems. P!nk achieved exactly what she wanted to on Funhouse. "It feels good to get people not just emoting and releasing all that energy, but getting angry and motivated too. It's group therapy.
P!nk All Music Guide Biography
Although initially viewed as another face in the late-'90s crowd of teen pop acts,Pink (professionally known as P!nk) quickly transcended and outgrew that label with her combination of pop songcraft and powerhouse, rock-influenced vocals. Born Alecia Moore on September 8, 1979, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, P!nkreceived her nickname as a child, years before she dyed her hair accordingly. She grew up in a musical family and was a regular on the Philadelphia club scene by the age of 13, first as a dancer and then as a backing vocalist for the local hip-hop group Schoolz of Thought. At 14, she began writing her own songs; the same year, a local DJ at Club Fever began inviting her on-stage to sing a song every Friday. P!nk was spotted one night by an executive for MCA Records, who asked her to audition for an R&B group called Basic Instinct. Although P!nk's strong vocals landed her the gig, the group imploded not long after. She was quickly recruited for a female R&B trio called Choice, who signed to L.A. Reid and Babyface's LaFace label on the strength of their demo; however, they too disbanded due to differences over musical direction. During Choice's brief studio time, producer Daryl Simmons asked P!nk to write a bridge section for the song "Just to Be Loving You." Impressed with the results, P!nkrediscovered her songwriting muse, and an equally impressed L.A. Reid soon gave her a solo deal with LaFace. P!nk recorded her solo debut, Can't Take Me Home, with a variety of songwriting partners and dance-pop and R&B producers. Released in 2000, the album was a double-platinum hit; it spun off three Top Ten singles in "There U Go," "Most Girls," and "You Make Me Sick." She toured that summer as the opening act for *N Sync, but soon found herself tired of being pigeonholed as strictly a teen act despite her sassy, forthright persona. As she set about working on her follow-up album, P!nk took part in the remake of Patti LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade" featured on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which also featured powerhouse divas Christina Aguilera, Mya, and Lil' Kim. The song was a massive hit, topping the charts in both the U.S. and U.K. while expandingP!nk's own audience. Toward the end of the year, P!nk released her next single, "Get the Party Started," which climbed into the Top Five and became the singer's most inescapable hit to date. Her accompanying sophomore album,M!ssundaztood, quickly went double platinum; it boasted a more personal voice and an eclectic sound, plus heavy contributions from ex-4 Non Blondes singerLinda Perry, who helped bring some more rock muscle to P!nk's sound (as did guest appearances by Steven Tyler and Richie Sambora). M!ssundaztoodattracted positive critical notices as well, and its second single, "Don't Let Me Get Me," became another fast-rising Top Ten hit. P!nk next issued Try This in November 2003. The album continued her progression toward more rock-oriented material, due in part to the songwriting collaboration of Rancid frontmanTim Armstrong on eight of the album's tracks. Try This' lead single, "Trouble," cracked the upper regions of Billboard's Top 40 and earned P!nk a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. On the home front, P!nk wed motocross racer Carey Hart -- whom she had initially met at 2001's X-Games -- on January 7, 2006, in Costa Rica. Her next album, I'm Not Dead, appeared that April; its first single, "Stupid Girls," quickly became a hit, while "Who Knew" and "U + Ur Hand" both cracked the Top Ten. I'm Not Dead reached platinum status in several countries and helped ramp up anticipation for P!nk's follow-up,Funhouse, which arrived in October 2008. "So What," the album's leadoff single, became her first number one hit since "Lady Marmalade." Another hit, "Please Don't Leave Me," followed in 2009 and all her hits were collected on the 2010 release Greatest Hits...So Far!!!, which was preceded by the single "Raise Your Glass." Around the time of the release of Greatest Hits...So Far!!!, P!nkannounced that she and her husband were expecting their first child. In September 2012, P!nk released her sixth studio album, The Truth About Love. With production from Greg Kurstin, Butch Walker, Max Martin, Dan Wilson, and others, it became her first number one album in America and earned platinum status in half a dozen countries. The singles "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)," "Try," and "Just Give Me a Reason" all hit the Top Ten in the U.S., and the last became her fourth number one hit in America. P!nk mounted a yearlong tour through Australia, Europe, and North America, and at the end of 2013 she was named Woman of the Year by Billboard. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
