Of all the
dance-pop/
teen pop singers to emerge in 1999,
Pink seemed the least likely to have success. She didn't have an easy-to-market image like
Britney or
Christina, nor were her singles all that distinctive, so it was a real shock when she reinvented herself as a badass dance-
rock chick for her second album,
M!ssundaztood. It wasn't just that the album revealed a unique, forceful personality; it was that it crafted an original, dynamic sound from seemingly contradictory sources, as
Pink hauled out forgotten
4 Non Blondes leader
Linda Perry for her primary collaborator, piled on the
hard rock riffs, and sharpened up the
R&B rhythms, while writing as nakedly as a confessional singer/songwriter. It was a big surprise that
Pink had an album like
M!ssundaztood in her, but that surprise is nearly equalled by its successor,
Try This, which proves that she can pull off the same trick twice -- an unpredictable giant leap forward, assisted by unlikely collaborators, that winds up being among the best
pop music of its given year. While
Perry is still around, she only collaborates on three tracks, since
Pink has picked another left-field choice for her main co-writer/producer for
Try This:
Tim Armstrong, one of the lead singer/songwriters for the acclaimed neo-
punk band
Rancid.
Armstrong co-writes and produces eight of the 13 songs here, and while it's true that he helps steer
Pink into harder-rocking territory, the end result isn't quite as simple as
Try This being a straight-up
rock & roll album. Instead,
hard rock is used as the foundation for the record (even some of the
Perry-written tracks rock very hard), and then it stretches out into several different styles and sounds. Some are familiar -- there's a handful of dance-oriented tracks, a quiet
ballad, such as the closer,
"Love Song" -- but, like
M!ssundaztood, this is
pop music that knows no boundaries, borrowing ideas from
punk,
soul,
ska,
new wave, and
electronica to create an exhilarating listen that crackles with energy and inventiveness. This music has reference points, some intentional and some not -- the similarities of
"Trouble" and
Nirvana's cover of
the Vaselines'
"Molly's Lips" may be on purpose, but the echoes of
Blur's
"Pressure on Julian" on
"God Is a DJ" is surely coincidental -- but it's presentation is original and exceptionally well-written. This time around, she's not as consciously confessional, which makes for a nice fit for
Armstrong's strong sense of songcraft and
pop hooks, resulting in music that is immediately grabbing yet so sturdily crafted it only seems stronger, even catchier, with repeated listens. While
Pink's peers take incremental, cautious artistic steps forward, she's slyly fearless, choosing the right collaborators that help her create
pop music that has both style and substance to spare.
Britney Spears,
Pink's avowed arch-nemesis, may claim that she's taking advice from
Madonna, but here
Pink illustrates that she's the true heir to
Madonna's throne, since she displays a restlessness similar to the Material Girl in the '80s, while never once sounding like
Madonna -- or other spiritual predecessors like
Pat Benatar,
Stevie Nicks, or
Debbie Harry, for that matter. With
Try This,
Pink has firmly established a voice of her own, and in doing so, she's made another tremendous modern
pop record. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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