Oh

P!nk is currently perfectly placed to do something really artistically daring and memorable. She's had such a commercially successful career so far and is so respected as a performer and songwriter (well... compared to the other major league major label divas anyway) that she can do whatever she wants now and it won't really harm or hurt her. But instead we get this. Black and white can be really beautiful and iconic but this just looks tacky and blown out like it was filmed on a laptop and edited on imovie. There's a story of sorts but it's not original or interesting enough to be gripping. P!nk looks beautiful we guess.

SQUAT FOR THAT CASH BABY

P!nk has decided that unlike Madonna, her post-baby album is not going to be a mature spiritual ride of discovery, but just business as usual.

So here we have her working them gams for her rent and nappy money.

Not sure about the font or design but it doesn't really offend us, it's just not very exciting either, is it?

Unless you fantasise about her sitting on your face in which case this is prime photoshopping material.

Anyway here it is alongside her previous 5 album covers. The evolution of P!nk:

Speaking of which...

New P!nk album, September 18th, The Truth About Love. That all came at once didn't it?

I've had a shit day, I've had a shit day

It's been SO LONGGGGGG since we've had new P!nk stuff, and she'd kind of (massively) fallen off her radar. We were all over like a dog in heat back around 2008/09, catching her twice in concert and being caught up in the midst of arguably her best album Funhouse. Then came her long awaited greatest hits collection which - fair play - brought along a good few new tracks. However this is the lead single from a brand new album & era, in which much has changed since the last album. Just as Funhouse and the greatest hits felt like an end to a significant portion of P!nk's career, "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" straddles this awkward line between signalling the beginning of a fresh new start in which P!nk is leading a life full of content and satisfaction... and still singing about how much she hates her partner and can't wait to get rid of him. Shrug. We like the kind of Californian guitar synth sound, it's very 'one of the better parts of 2010'.

Regardless, the song is fun and we just know it's gonna be a grower. She's always had a knack for this kind of pop rock ditty - it's her 'thing' - but we had hoped for a greater change in direction. You know, she's been a proponent of her trademark mix of Linda Perry, Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Greg Kurstin radio rock since "Don't Let Me Get Me" and we'd love to hear her fabulously unique vocals applied to a different style. But on the other hand, you know what, if it works for her and she's not all over giving electro, soul, R&B or anything else a hand... we're cool with that. Just as long as she carries on putting out stuff with the quality of this lead single. To summarise: we're not expecting anything new in terms of direction for the new album, but we're expecting quality. Huzzah.

Not quite perfect (ETC. LOL. ETC.)

We have to give P!nk her dues. Tiresome as it may be to see her finding herself accidentally in the midst of the current INSPIRATIONAL FEMALE POP DIVA trend, she really commits. We mean, she was doing this sort of be-your-own-hero, god-loves-women-and-the-gays thing long before Katy Perry, Lady GaGa and Ke$ha even had record contracts! So if we're gonna put up with vaguely-patronising self-help pop from anyone, it's going to be P!nk.

And yeah. Good. We don't want to spoil the video for anyone, but if you're gonna show someone miserable and self-harming, you might as well go the whole hog and show it for how gnarly and horrid it is, instead of sugarcoating or glamourising it. Also nice to see Tina Majorino of Napoleon Dynamite, Veronica Mars and the 1999 version of Alice in Wonderland showing off her considerable acting talents.

In inspirational music video news...

Mixed Messages

To be honest with you, P!nk's work for the gay community endears her to us to such an extreme degree, that she could do anything and we'd sing her praises, unconditionally. What use is that for a music blog that essentially founds its writings in the realm of criticism, we hear you ask? Well, here we're going to be loving, but not blindly so, and objective etc. so that you can gain our unbiased opinion re: the calvacade of (JUST GET ON WITH IT - ED).

Anyway: we're not sure how we feel about the balaclava chic, in P!nk's new video (watch here - EMBEDDING DISABLED BY CUNTQUEST), and perhaps the whole thing veers a little too sharply into patronising PETA territory, at times, but what's essential is that P!nk's heart is in the right place! Long live gays! Long live education! Long live white people with dreadlocks (is that even an oppressed minority?!)! Long live bulls and cows, free and unfettered from human intervention! Long live lanterns! Long live skater boiz! Down with money! Down with the man! Down with Uncle Sam! Down with hypocritical lustful members of the clergy, unless they're secretly lesbian nuns, in which case LONG LIVE! etc. etc. repeat ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

What's important is that P!nk has made a fun pop song and released a fun pop video, too, if you don't mind being mildly condescended.

Look what we have here!

For her long over due greatest hits package, cleverly entitled Greatest Hits with a quirky, edgy So Far!!! tagged on the end to correctly mark the artist as 'out there', complete with not one, not two but three exclamation points, Salmon P!nk has collaborated with long time collaborator of old Max Martin to fashion a high-energy (but not Hi-NRG, no, certainly not), up-beat anthem of sorts. It's a very good song, and interesting to hear Shocking P!nk return to the stand-alone, unadulterated pop single she has had so much success with in her career. Not that there was anything remotely wrong with the concept spin of Funhouse - it is this writer's personal belief that Funhouse is the finest LP of her career - but before said album Cerise P!nk had pumped out many-a thumping, no-strings-attached amazing pop tune. There are some lolo moments, like opening the ditty with a fabulous English accent, the bit where she 'messes up' before the final massive chorus, and oh, this is the funniest bit, when she says "TOO SCHOOL FOR COOL". Hahahahaha. Did you see what she did there? She swapped two words around in a well known idiomatic phrase. She's amazing. Listen here.

PS - the name of the song is "Raise Your Glass". Soz for not mentioning earlier.

Shiny & New Turns 2: #14 "Sober" - P!nk

“I don't wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest / Or the girl who never wants to be alone"

P!nk’s “Sober” couldn’t have been more different to its predecessor, 2008’s lead single “So What” (released on my birthday, dontcha know). On the latter, P!nk came to terms with a relationship split by screaming so loud she couldn’t or didn’t want to cry, and took it one step further by, rather post-modernly, mocking the whole ‘scream-through-the-tears’ attitude reviewers praised her for refreshingly displaying, in the song’s video. But on “Sober”, on “Sober” we got dark, serious P!nk, perhaps the darkest yet, and considering she’s had her fair share of these moments, ever since the UK chart-topping “Just Like a Pill” in 2002, that was something indeed.

As a mainstream international female popstar, P!nk doesn’t seem to get a lot of credit from critics, and sure enough, her music rarely strays out of her pop/rock comfort zone. But since her sophomore album, M!ssundaztood, she has proven herself to be an incredible lyricist and on “Sober” her talents are in full effect: “I don't wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest / Or the girl who never wants to be alone / I don't wanna be that call at 4 o'clock in the morning / 'Cos I'm the only one you know in the world that won't be home”. Capturing a unique and usually unheard of sentiment in mainstream pop, she brilliantly outlines her incomprehension at just how good she feels without a man, and just how independently she thinks, never putting a male’s needs before her own. It also helps that on “Sober” we get to hear a little musical innovation. Those gorgeous, almost baroque strings at the end are the perfect, emotional but brittle match for P!nk and her fascinating tough girl sensitivy. “Sober” is a songwriting triumph.

Get this party started on a... Thursday night

We've seen P!nk before, and we've written about P!nk before. We're not going to repeat our views on how it should be a criminal offence that the music world as a whole still fails to recognise her supremacy as one of the finest performers and artists working today. It's been said before and will continue to be said until something changes and she can achieve the success she has reached in Europe and Australia in her home country - to her credit Funhouse did do extraordinarily well as a campaign so change may be a-comin'.

The Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour is a sequel of sorts to the mammoth year long Funhouse Tour of last year and features an even more fun, spontaneous and whimsical P!nk on stage with minimal dancers and costume changes. A stripped down show of sorts - in some areas. In other areas she just continues to out-do herself. Like we tweeted unashamedly, we've seen some spectacular concerts in the years we've been attending them. Lady GaGa, Beyoncé, the Spice Girls - even Madonna couldn't top P!nk for visual spectacular. As far as we're aware, there isn't another pop star who chooses to enter a concert by being lifted by crane inside a toy box, which is then shot at by a cannon ball leading to Ms. Moore launching herself upon the crowd from the sky. At one point, she jumped into a giant inflatable ball previously seen on Boots experience days a la "Roll down a massive hill inside lol" and scampered above the heads of the entire audience doing her finest hamster-in-hamster-ball impression. Just bizarre. The intimacy and connection the audience had with the artist was second to none; at one point she jumped down to sign a boy's arm which he declared he would get tattooed. Another attendee was rewarded for their journey all the way from Perth (her Australian fans have to be the most ardent) with a personal sixty second audience.

And the finale - we doubt we will see anything like it ever again, unless she repeats it on her next tour. It was some Cirque du Soleil shit. Helped by a series of columns dotted around the audience, P!nk literally flew above the heads of the audience singing her heart out and brushing against the lesbians baying for some P!nk juice. No words will justify the visual entertainment - the final image the audience were provided with was a suspended P!nk holding the audience in the palm of her hand, backed by fountains of fire. The setlist was practically flawless - all the hits were represented, bar a few. Very heavy on I'm Not Dead and Funhouse, we wouldn't have minded seeing some more Misundaztood classics or even a little "Most Girls" but we can't really complain.

There is no way we can possibly stress enough that if you have any doubts of P!nk's talents as a performer, take the plunge and a chance on her, see the show and if you do not have your misguided mind blown, we will send you our life savings (about £42 as of June 25th, 2010) in a mail order.

The Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour at Ricoh Arena, Coventry on June 24th, 2010
P!nk played;

* "Get the Party Started"
* "Funhouse"
* "Who Knew"
* "Ave Mary A"
* "Just Like a Pill"
* "Bad Influence"
* "Please Don't Leave Me"
* "Sober"
* "I'm Not Dead"
* "Unwind"
* "I Don't Believe You"
* "Dear Mr. President"
* "Mean"
* "My Generation/Basket Case/Roxanne"
* "What's Up"
* "Try Too Hard"
* "U & Ur Hand"
* "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)"
* "So What"

Stuck In Our Head: "God Is A DJ" - P!nk

There are some who scoff at "God Is A DJ". They scoff at the whole album it's from (2003's Try This). They tell you it hasn't dated well, it's not P!nk's best. They tell you it's not worth delving into, you should just give it a miss.

Well we think "God Is A DJ" is still a veritable modern classic, a brillo tongue-in-cheek, balls-to-the-floor, euphoric pop/rock minor masterpiece. We love it. It's stuck in our head.

We like this kind of thing!

Throw-backs. Self-referencing. Recycling. We like it at Shiny & New. It's nice to hear an artist briefly for a few seconds revisit a past song of theirs, especially if it's one we love, especially if they are doing it in a song we love. And lately, it might just be us, but there seems to be a lot of it going about! Check out the exampz below and feel free to let us know any we are missing out on and need to get with. We wanna know!

In her lead single from career-spanning greatest hits Celebration, Madonna was apparently meant to include a roster of lyrics hinting at her past hits but the only one that stood out for us was this lifting return to 1985's "Into the Groove", taking us back to possibly her finest, most famous, most simple dance song and changing the questioning of her dance partner into a firm command to move.

Step to the beat, boy / That's what it's for
"Celebration", 2009

Step to the beat, boy / What will it be?
"Into the Groove", 1985

It's only been out a few weeks but we are already in love with P!nk's "Push You Away", a bonus track on the tour re-release of her 2008 masterpiece Funhouse. It follows the same lyrical themes as the brilliant "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)", the song dealing with love/hate, push/pull that anyone in a long-term relationship could tell you about.

I know I said that "You don't own me, / just leave me alone I'm lonely"
"Push You Away", 2009

Tonight, leave me alone / I'm lonely
"Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)", 2006

Guest-featuring on the effervescent Keri Hilson's "Knock You Down", Ne-Yo - not one of our favourites but undoubtedly one of the finest song-writing talents in music today - throws in the signature line and melody of one of his best known songs, paying tribute to Hilson herself in the process.

Miss Independent / To the fullest
"Knock You Down", 2009

That's why I love her / Miss Independent
"Miss Independent", 2008

Finally, the biggest break-out artist of 2008 and 2009 combined, Lady GaGa has punched us in the balls and dragged us by them through an album and a half of the finest new pop music that has been produced since, what, True Blue? Despite this throw-back coming a year after the release of the song it references, we not only think this is completely deserved, but completely fits into GaGa's themeing within the song itself and the album it sits on. We love that. GaGa does themeing.

I wanna Just Dance / but he took me home instead
"Monster", 2009

Just dance / Gonna be okay
"Just Dance", 2007/8

Did we miss any?

Our love is P!nk!

To kind of make up for the fact that despite us desperately trying to get hold of P!nk tickets and miserably failing, we have a wonderful new song from the Funhouse Tour DVD + CD collection. We don't know if it was a left over from the Funhouse sessions or a brand new song for 2009, but we do know that it's bloody fantastic. Classic mother fucker in your face don't give a shitting shit P!nk, and perfect to let all your anger over not getting P!nk tickets out to. Brilliant.

A very pretty P!nk video...

As we've mentioned before... it's nice to know that P!nk is still making an effort 5 (or 6 in Australia) singles into her album campaign. Up there is the extremely pretty, if fairly static, new video for "I Don't Believe You", a song we've previously wittered on about here.

Single cover art below:

Why do I like boys...

When I can have this otherwise?

A pop music [insert opposite to travesty].

So. Fucking. Excited.
If we manage to get our greedy mitts on tickets for when P!nk brings her stunning Funhouse Tour back to the UK this winter, we will be making a return attendance, but regardless we will be getting hold of this bad boy.

Our review of P!nk's Birmingham show in April is right here.

Stuck In Our Head: "I Don't Believe You" - P!nk

According to a 'source' (what is this? Heat magazine?) this is the next single. We've made our (positive) feelings on Pink made heard numerous times before and we'll just take this time to say that it is refreshing to hear a genuinely tough and extremely good-humoured woman dare to be vulnerable in a way that isn't contrived, attention-seeking or tinged with sexuality. It's a beautiful thing, readers.

A functional P!nk video...

This isn't what we expected, but for a fourth video from an international album campaign it's quite good, and we like the Tony Kanal cameo. Usually by this point in an international album campaign, artists have either resorted to live videos, performance setup videos, singles-with-no-videos, animated videos or other lazy shortcuts, so it's nice to get yet another fun 'n' fresh 3 minute movie from our favourite Ms. P!nk.

This is going to be the next single...

... we look forward to the vidular spectacular. Don't cop out on us, please. We didn't think it would work as the opener to the Funhouse Tour, but boy did she prove us wrong. Amazing choreography, stunning entrance, ridiculously high levels of energy; this song is P!nk at her best. We hope the video displays this just as well, however we will understand if it doesn't as her time right now is being concentrated on playing 1355658545 shows in three months in Aussieland.

Stuck In Our Head: "Long Way To Happy" - P!nk

I'm Not Dead by P!nk is one of those albums we discovered in retrospect but it's rather stompingly good (with a dollop of angst on top) and we lurrrve it. This 'cut' has been stuck in our head today, clearly, hence you find it on this 'ere bloggus.