Pink - M!ssundaztood 'M!ssundaztood' album

This is a story of a young woman who at 21 years-of-age was already signed to both Arista Records and Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds' LaFace Records and had released a debut album entitled Can't Take Me Home to critical acclaim both in her native U.S.A. and numerous other countries. Pink had an attitude, style, image and voice never before seen in RnB. Her willingness to break trends, be outlandish and combine her own variety of musical influences in her music made her a welcome addition to the urban scene.

Her sophomore effort entitled Missundaztood however sounds absolutely nothing like Can't Take Me Home even though she is still signed to Arista and still has Antonio 'L.A.' Reid as co-executive producer as she did on her debut. The addition of her own name as the other indicates as she has said herself, this album is far more "her."

In terms of track production and song writing, gone are the services of Babyface, Kandi Burruss, Kevin 'She'kspere' Briggs, Daron Jones (of 112) and Soulshock & Karlin. Instead the majority of this LP is written by Pink herself, with former 4 Non Blondes member Linda Perry aswell as Dallas Austin who has production credits for TLC and Madonna. The latter two along with Damon Elliot also produce 12 of the 14 tracks on this album.

As with most artists, unless it is a debut you always tend to compare their latest work to their old, to do this with this particular album would reveal that Can't Take Me Home and Missundaztood are about as different as they could possibly be. Pink is known to have been the lead singer of at least two rock bands in her youth whilst also being a member of a gospel choir, while her first LP showed her gospel RnB influences, this one contrasts it with her love of rock.

Missundaztood is full of heavy guitar laden beatlines and soft rock melodies, and the lyrics throughout detail the battle which seems to be going on inside Alissa Moore. Where 'Get The Party Started' is the up-tempo more blues influenced track on this album, 'Misery' which features Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is the more old school slow rock ballad and does, as many have said, sound like 60's rocker Janis Joplin.

My personal favourite on this album is easily 'Dear Diary', the bassline is slow and works wonderfully with the guitar that plucks out the melody. Pink sounds her best and the words are again more meaningful as she sings about her diary being the only thing she can tell her secrets to.

'Lonely Girl' which was written for Pink by Linda Perry while the singer was in hospital is again a deep song in which she discusses trying to find herself and whether she is living a borrowed dream or is a superstar. While 'Numb' is a more up-tempo track which relies heavily on the guitar as it's main instrument and an especially powerful song in it's content. Another subtle reference to her father is featured in the last track of the album 'My Vietnam', if you listen closely to the lyrics you will find it is quite descriptive of Pink's life and the guitar driven rendition of the star spangled banner at the end of the track is as disturbing as it is good.

It would be unfair to say this is a bad album, the fact is that while the majority of it isn't musically to my taste, in the same breath much of it lyrically is fabulous. Pink has vastly changed her music style but her voice remains the same one which attracted many of us on 'There You Go'. I think that for an artist especially one so new and so young to change direction so drastically takes alot of vision on the part of her label and alot of guts on the part of the artist. If you have a wide-ranging taste in music you will appreciate this album for what it is, however RnB fans will really only enjoy a minimal number of tracks I suspect the others will be a little too much of a stretch.

Missundaztood is certainly not 56 minutes of music that will make you dance, or even an album that you would necessarily play over and over. What it is though is 14 tracks of pure passion, and if I'm honest the music that I listen to and appreciate most is the type that evokes some form of emotion from me. For all the things this LP is not, if you listen hard it does make you think, you do wonder where Pink is coming from with this and I would hope that she knows with this album maybe some of us 'understand' her a little more.

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Pink - M!ssundaztood - M!ssundaztood