P!NK I'm Not Dead

Some of the rockers on P!nk's fourth album—"Long Way to Happy," "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)"—suggest '80s pop tuff-girl Pat Benatar as a major influence. But Benatar's sneer never projected (or covered for) anything as complex as P!nk's does. This woman hasn't lost pride in her working-class roots, whether interrogating George W. Bush in a song he'll never hear ("Dear Mr. President") or bragging to a wannabe that "I could fit your whole house in my swimming pool". It's a point of pride that she's got money, but she'll still go out of her way to remember her unhappy 13-year-old self. She sings to the younger P!nk over a sweeping orchestral ballad that points to the try-anything sonic adventurousness her producers seem glad to encourage, and pushing it even further, adds a simply strummed lament written by and performed with her Vietnam-vet dad. It's all true to her, as are club-ready tracks such as "Fingers"—a companion song to Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop".