Critical Care
4 Out of 5 Stars
Titling an album "I'm Not Dead" is almost a dare to your audience. It would be far too easy for a hater to flip that title around on Pink; if you have to say something like "I'm not dead," chances are you're already in the morgue. But not our grown-up bad girl. This album is sassy, snotty, compelling, introspective, catchy and eclectic as all get out. Pink most certainly not dead. In fact, she's moving through so many phases, it'll be hard for other popstars to keep up.
The funny sideswipe of "Stupid Girls" opens the album with Pink not only tearing down the vacuous no-talent scenesters that populate Los Angeles Party palaces, but also seemingly a primal scream to escape the insular star universe they hang out in. The theme is revisited in the somber "I Got Money Now," where she celebrates her success and questions if she has become any better than the loner who broke from the pack and made it to stardom. Which is followed by "Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self," which is absolutely dazzling. As a song to the misfits wandering if it ever gets better, Pink emotionally puts forth that it will.
That's not to say "I'm Not Dead" is all emo. "Cuz I Can" celebrates the stardom without any self-consciousness at all, even laying in a ridiculous "Ice Cream, Ice Cream, we all want Ice Cream" chant in the chorus. "U and Ur Hand" is an absolute howl, the female shot fired right before some Billy Idol wannabe would have to break into a chorus of "Dancing With Myself." There's plenty to enjoy on this collection of modern pop, and Pink may be the best of the breed currently putting these kind of records out.
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