Pink’s album Beautiful Trauma is messy and disorganised [Review]
The singer-songwriter’s first album in five years holds none of the edginess that she became famous for in the first place
After a five-year break, Pink is back with Beautiful Trauma, an album as confusing as its title suggests.
Half the songs here are soft, slow piano ballads, such as But We Lost It, which features heart-wrenching cello lines as Pink sings, “Where does love go to die? Is it some sad empty castle in the sky?” The same applies to Barbies and For Now, which becomes an overblown pop song by the end. By the time Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken and You Get My Love come around, the sentiment starts to wear a little thin.
On the other half of the album, Pink sounds as if she’s trying to write a generic hit song in 2017. The acoustic Whatever You Want sounds like Taylor Swift, I Am Here is similar to The Lumineers, while the upbeat Where We Go could have been written by Ed Sheeran. The summery feel good Better Life sounds forced, and the warped male vocals on What About Us are incredibly dated. Even when Eminem gets involved on the R’n’B-esque Revenge, the song lacks any real passion or grit.
The only real moment of inspiration comes from the effortless Secrets, which has a simple laid back, pulsing synth line, while Pink sings “I’ve got some things to say, ‘Cause there’s a lot you don’t know, It’s written on my face, it’s guna be hard to swallow.”
On her seventh album, bar a few decent lyrics, Pink has lost all the attitude that catapulted her to stardom in the first place.
Contains strong language