I'm Not Dead; P!NK

Being the amateur song-writer I am, I sort of have a habit of looking up to other song-writers out there. When I'm looking for an artist, one of the major factor I consider when rating them is their ability to write songs. Given that situation it must be pretty darn clear that P!NK would be one of my favorite artists.

P!NK has always amazed me with her ability to write songs. She sticks to what she knows and comes up with the most brilliant lyrics one can listen to. This album has a slight different pattern to it. Her previous album, Try This released in 2003. She took a gap of three years before she put out her fourth effort, I'm Not Dead.

How is this album different from the rest you may ask?!

Well, it turns out that many of the songs you would find on it were originally the poetry she had written during her experimental phase. It seems she has written a song of just about everything; death of a friend, loneliness, growing up, masturbation. It seems just about her entire life is bunched into an album consisting of 17 tracks.

The songs you can find on I'm Not Dead are as follows;

1. Stupid Girls
2. Who Knew
3. Long Way To Happy
4. Nobody Knows
5. Dear Mr. President ft. Indigo Girls
   
6. 'Cuz I Can
7. Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)
8. U + Ur Hand
9. Runaway
10. The One That Got Away
11. I Got Money Now
12. Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self
13. I Have Seen The Rain
14. Heartbreaker (Bonus Track)
15. Centrefold (Bonus Track)
16. Fingers (Bonus Track)

While the underlying genre still happens to be punk, P!NK throws in her soul and makes it sound alot mature that one could normally expect from punk songs. The process of making the album made P!NK grow wise beyond her years, which can be clearly noticed in some of the more intense tracks which deal with matter beyond love.

Though I'm a complete fan of her up-tempo material, I seem to be more drawn into the slower paced creations this time around. 'I'm Not Dead', 'Nobody Knows', 'Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self' and 'Who Knew' simply take my breath away. There is a reason I look up to her and these songs clearly tell why. If I could write like this, I'd die from happiness. All of these are simply stellar. Why am I saying that with such surety?!

Well it's been about 3 years since the album has released and I'm still having them around in my playlist. Its so hard to pick a favorite. I simply can't. I'm pretty much leaving it up to you guys whether to listen to the album after reading my reviews, but I really want you to listen to these four. They're a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

Coming back to the uptempo songs, one can simply not listen to 'Stupid Girls' and walk in another direction. It's amazing how P!NK can wrap such a crazy theme into a song. This song is why people love P!NK. The song talks about the lack of role model for the female of the new generations and how they are beginning to think in the direction that are turning them into blond bimbo clones and erasing individuality amongst them. It's super catchy and clearly meaningful at the same time.Plus the video is completely awesome, Dave Meyers is a genius. He also directed the video for 'So What' from the fifth album Funhouse.

Other fast paced dance floor bangers include 'Cuz I Can', 'U + Ur Hand' and 'Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)'. After a few of the brilliant slow numbers, P!NK gives the listener a huge adrenaline rush with these track and knocks it out of the ball park. 'Long Way To Happy' is a complete rock track and very reminiscent of her song 'Last To Know' from her third album Try This.

The bonus tracks are cool stuff that had some real potential to make it to the album, but there is a limit to the number of songs you can put on an album. 'I Have Seen The Rain' is written by P!NK's father, James T. Moore. It is about his experience in the Vietnam War. It is another favorite of mine, there is something about this song that gives me goosebumps. 'Fingers' is a very naughty track. Very seriously speaking I was very shocked when I heard it and was very much amazed of P!NK's ability to pen songs. But yeah, I must admit it reminds me abit of Kylie Minogue's 'Love At First Sight'.

P!NK adopts the rocker chick in her once again with the bonus tracks, 'Centrefold' and 'Heartbreaker'. They're definitely good songs so if you can get them do give them a listen.

As I'm about to close this one up I simply couldn't resist put in a small word for 'Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self' . Even though it's all about her world, it does happen to make you recall the first fall into one of the most important years of our lives, how easily it is to get caught up in the things around ourselves and how we wish we could have done things differently back then. I'm a huge huge huge fan of this song.

P!NK has continued to amaze me and even in her fifth album she blew me away. She could possibly be coming up with her sixth effort sometime late in 2010 or early 2011, but it is not for certain right now. Anyhow with me loving her four albums in a row, I'm hell sure that I'll be madly in love with her sixth as well whenever that might be.

Copyright © Saad Khan 2009 (Karachi, Pakistan; saadkhalidkhan@gmail.com)