More than a party girl
Caroline Sullivan
Philadelphia-born Alicia “Pink” Moore views this second album as a “mind-opening” outing that will distinguish her from the glut of girl-pop clones (Mya, for instance, a collaborator on her number-one single Lady Marmalade).
Bearing that in mind, she should drop the giggly exclamation marks used instead of I’s on her album cover. But look beyond them (and her uncertainty as to whether she is pop or R&B) and Missundaztood (Arista)offers an unusually three-dimensional picture of growing up in a broken home. Several songs focus on it, including the touching Family Portrait: “I don’t want two addresses, I don’t want a stepbrother / Daddy, please don’t leave”).
Most startling is My Vietnam, a raw acoustic number sung with stately simplicity. Goin’ to California argues that Los Angeles, for all its vacuousness, is preferable to Philadelphia, and is as understatedly eerie as Lydia Lunch at her queerest.
The more familiar party-girl Pink surfaces on the current hit Get the Party Started, where vocoder and parping keyboards create a jiggly dance moment. Don’t Let Me Get Me is much the same, but, tellingly, contains the line: “So tired of being compared to Britney Spears.”
There’s little chance of that with this surprisingly good album.