Music Review: ‘The Truth About Love’ by Pink
I like Pink, whose slightly overproduced records tend to cover a range of emotions with confessional candor. She rocks more than she glides, in slick songs that are alternately foul-mouthed and amplified or pared down, introspective and hurting.
Though there’s nothing as undaunted as “Raise Your Glass” or as poignant as “F****n’ Perfect” on The Truth Above Love, which features a vulgar cover shot of Pink squatting in pumps (and girlie-style pics of her posing in sleazy lingerie on the inside), the 13-tune album is an extended indulgence of a bad mood or energy purge.
Beneath the overproduced power pop, which is the truth about what she does, and she strains too hard for raunchy rhyme here, is an honest songwriter who, at her best, cleverly taps how we sometimes love to hate and hate to love. Top tunes include the irresistible title track, catchy “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”, “Try”, which echoes Pink’s self-affirming themes, and a propelling plea for life, and rejection of anti-life, “The Great Escape.” Jaded Pink’s been around the block, and the punk Mae West persona feels like it’s played out and should fade to make way for fresher insights, but RCA’s little Pink raunchette rocks another record that angrily expresses at least some degrees of truth about aching, bitter and conflicted love. The Truth About Love is too polished to fully convey its convictions, but Pink still does plain old rebelliousness right.