Maybe I Just M!ssundaztood...

Yes, but are you you?

Critique-as-you-listen (because it's fun!):

[Pre-free association caveat: I haven't really followed Pink and therefore can't compare this album to M!ssundaztood or Try This. But I don't think I'm necessarily missing something by not having heard the album -- if anything, I'd like to take my observations here and see how they work with/against the other album. This is provocative (the anti-Truth Squad album? The "truth" is avoiding all provocation? Beyond sexual? OK, maybe ya misspoke...but don't claim TRUTH for your squad before you and your handlers have really thought it through!) and it's also frustrating and ultimately kind of a mess, and I'm excited to hear a "better" version of it, if the two albums are in fact comparable.]

1. Stupid Girls

Hm, don't know about this one. Song's OK but the ideas running through don't sit well with me -- this feels like Mean Girls logic to me...because you girls (Paris Hilton? I know you aren't bringing Ashlee into this or we have to take a walk and talk...) are "stupid," other girls mimic your behavior (replace "stupid" with "mean" here). Does nothing to challenge the possible ROOTS of this behavior, or any social/political context in which this behavior is reinforced, codified, etc. And if you argue "hey, it's just Pink"...Pink has chosen an argument. So did Tina Fey. I happen to think they've both embraced a problematic view of certain types of behavior and have provided analysis so superficial that it might actually be damaging. "Hey girls, stop being so fucking STUPID/MEAN all the time!" Well, at least it's settled. How about, "hey girls, these behaviors have been codified through patriarchal structures of power that..." (sounds like best pop song/tween sitcom of '06 to me!).

2. Who Knew

Damn, this just doesn't quite work. I was really excited about the Dr. Luke/Max/Rami collaborations, but the energies at work here (production v. personality) feel at complete odds. Need to look at the lyrics more closely, but it seems a bit like bittersweet break-up being conflated with bitter break-up (mixing "Since U Been Gone" with...you know, some love and understanding. Nope.)

3. Long Way to Happy

Production is all over the map, now we're into hybrid hip-hop/power ballad. Again I'm not totally sure this works. "Stupid Girls" sets up a very particular kind of argument (and maybe aesthetic to a lesser extent) that's at odds with such an abrupt change of tone toward self-doubt, angst...not that they're mutually exclusive, just jarring so close together.

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart/ For all the sleepless nights/ That are tearin' me apart/ It's gonna take a long time to love"...we're already in deep therapy/long-term healing mode, this feels like too sudden a tone change. I do like the song, although Kelly C has kind of ruined my ability to listen to this without thinking of Breakaway balladry...

4. Nobody Knows

Wow, keeps slowing down. "I peek out from behind these walls/ I think nobody knows/ Nobody knows"...damn, now she's holding it all in, crying in secret? There's some serious introversion happening here. Competent ballad, bizarre key change into rock section and then back for a spare piano coda...wish I'd been studying some theory since 16 or so so I'd be able to parse the key changes from bookend piano part to rock ballad. I just can't believe this is only the fourth track!

5. Dear Mr. President

Slower still, waiting for the politics. Hey George, take a walk with me and talk straight. How do you feel about the homeless? Who do you pray for? What do you feel when you look in the mirror -- are you proud? Hmmmmm. I'm not sure I'm buying into this totally, but I like the audacity of the song (and frankly of the album so far). Kind of exciting. Nice -- No Child Left Behind, what kind of father would take his daughter's rights away...haha, keeps getting better and angrier. What does Laura say? How about, "Yes, dear." Can he look you in the eye? Uh, he doesn't have to, Pink, sorry. You're clearly not thumping his base (although maybe he'll take Aly and AJ's calls...)

Hate to hold Pink to too-high/unfair standards here, because frankly any dissent/frustration expressed is better than willful apathy or a consciously apolitical argument. But I still don't see what this is supposed to do beyond some venting that, even just as venting, still feels at LEAST two years too late. Which is totally unfair, I know, but I'm pissed (and so is she...so what are we going to DO about it??).

6. I'm Not Dead

"I'm not dead, just floating. Underneath the ink of my tattoo I try to hide my scars from you." It's all a front, then. But it's not. But it is. Sub-Ashlee ballad, again a mixed tone kind of deflates the individual arguments/observations running through this (and other) songs. Practically polemical on that first track and now schizo [and about to get schizo-er, backtracking from "Leave Me a Lonely Loner Lone Loan"]

7. 'Cuz I Can

"I drink more than you and party harder" P-I-N-K back again y'all missed me. I talk shit, just deal with it. BUT YOU JUST ASKED US TO LOOK BEYOND YOUR TATTOOS. "Cash my checks, place my bets, hope I always win; even if I don't I'm fucked because I live a life of sin"...and yet there's a synth bounce to this track (synthetic hand clap track included) that kind of belies the darkness of "live in sin"...ultimately she seems just to be saying "fuck it." Which is kind of interesting (did she just bark like a dog?) but troubles me for reasons expressed above. Maybe I shouldn't be looking into "Stupid Girls" as some kind of statement of purpose (hard not to with that video, though). Very strange Gottwald/Martin production on this one...

8. Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)

"You taste so sweet/but I can't eat the same thing every day"...wow, this is the most schizo track yet. "GO AWAY COME BACK GO AWAY COME BACK" ...wish you knew the difference? Uh, no, you're just crazy. I should be able to relate to this, it describes my relationship to the internet at the moment! And film and music and writing. But I'm not clicking with this at all...I just fundamentally doubt Pink's sincerity (maybe "sincerity," meaning the trust I feel toward engaging with this album personally) at this point in the album...mid-way.

9. U and Ur Hand

Closer to "Get the Party Started" verse...no, goes DIRECTLY into "4Ever," holy shit that is EXACT. Just U and Ur hand tonight??? That's even more juvenile than the V's! Even they never came right out and said "why don't you just go jack it, asshole"...although I feel like they might have sold that one. Blame it on the hangover. Wow, this is so close to being a great song, and instead it's a total fucking mess. Keep your dream DRINK [OK this makes more sense], just gimme the money. Hm.

10. Runaway

Are you really going to go into slow-build run off and find independence (or not at all, "I'll never be a perfect girl, I've got to run away") after that? She's "gotta leave this hypocrisy," but I can't tell if what I'm hearing throughout is hypocrisy or conflict (or a little bit of both). Gotta be the last option -- I'm SO close to connecting to this album and Pink keeps pushing me out again. Where is the trust in this album? How can you sell an intensely personal, confessional ballad (all >50% of album of them) with such callousness mixed in? Schizo track sums it up nicely, LEAVE COME BACK LEAVE COME BACK. And I will come back (tomorrow, I'm TIRED), but I kind of want to leave, meaning check out. Not turn off the album.

11. The One That Got Away

More country here, just the acoustic guitar, but Pink's voice still pierces through unchanged despite some more gospel inflection/harmony. Drawin' me in with those big brown lyin' eyes...doesn't feel like a Pink line to me (given the rest of the album anyway). She doesn't really sell it, and doesn't really seem to sell this song, either. Don't believe in soul mates? Said a bit too explicitly. Ashlee namedrops the "SM" phrase (not that one) a lot and I don't for one second know if she really believes it or just uses it to confront her own loneliness...she has to believe in a soulmate, what else could save her from being alone? But she writes such pretty songs this way...

12. I Got Money Now

See, the wind-down here is strange and maybe off-putting because of a very different progression into ballads at the beginning of the album. It never really picks up again between "Dear President" and "Runaway," and as sequenced it feels kind of like there are two (or more) albums fighting for space. There are two Pinks fighting for space, and they aren't coexisting in harmonious conflict...maybe they just don't both belong on the same album. "Wouldn't trade a dollar for some sense/ Wouldn't trade a lifetime for some friends/ ...Worked hard all my life to have things I could call mine so I don't need love." Keeps blindsiding me with these lyrics! I'll quote Christgau on this one, I guess:

No, she doesn't mean it—that's just a smarter than usual woe-is-stardom song. Much smarter than usual.

Right. Haha, a blurbish word count might do my rambling some good. Except (except) that sneaky straw man "hard work" resurfaces after the Bush track -- what are you challenging here? How does your conception of "hard work" and the supposed legitimacy of your success translate into how you view yourself and the world -- would Bush be any different if he "worked hard" according to your standards? More importantly, does it matter? Does this all just amount to self-aggrandizement transformed into a vague projected argument/message that, when scrutinized, kind of falls apart? (I'm glad I've never written anything like that, whew.)

Who really gives a shit if Pink is famous? Fame/celebrity is a fascinating potential suture into a personal narrative, but it isn't necessarily in and of itself a particularly compelling subject when it's reduced to angry navel-gazing (and said navel has a big ol' diamond bellybutton ring and hey that makes you feel kind of guilty sometimes, but why shouldn't you have money, you "earned" it, but it's not like money is all you need...). Guess I'd rather hear Pink complain about fame than Mike Skinner. Again going back to Ashlee, though, celebrity is IMPLICIT in the ballads that some have used to just pin the tail on the tabloid -- gossip/knowledge of celebrity culture isn't a prerequisite to emotional connection/involvement in Ashlee's music, but it explicitly is for Pink, at least in this song. Which doesn't work for me at all.

13. Conversations with My 13-Year-Old Self

OK now I've totally checked out. Sigh, listen one more time to try to make this register...

"You're angry, I know this...you're lonely, I feel this." So Pink is going to hug the 13 year old...but I hope she doesn't sing her a verse from Schizo Song. See, things AREN'T going to get any better for 13 yo you, Pink, this whole album is about your inability to...wait, "I am just the shell"?? STOP DOIN' THAT! AUGH THIS ALBUM IS SO TERRIFIED OF EVERYTHING. All the confidence that doesn't FEEL fake is basically undermined with self-deprecation. OK, I'm me, I've got a personality, this is who I am (but the tattoos are fake. And I don't know what I want. And...)

I haven't even gotten STARTED on this thing yet. We'll see how much of this I agree with in the morning.