If there’s one thing Pink is not, it’s shy. The singer has always been brutally honest about her personal life in her music, and The Truth About Love seems to chronicle the changes of the past four years.
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Since her last album, Funhouse in 2008, she’s married, divorced, reconciled and had a baby with her off-again, currently on-again husband, motocross racer Carey Hart. The tracks on her sixth studio release not only showcase the trademark kiss-off rebel the public has come to know and love, but also a softer, more vulnerable side that listeners have only seen glimpses of before.
As if to remind us that she has not gone soft, Pink opens the album with the severe “Are We All We Are,” followed by the current single “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” a dance-floor-ready pop-punk anthem bidding farewell to a lover she’s fed up with.
“True Love” is the catchiest album on the track, a synth-infused tune where Pink sings that she would just as easily “wrap [her] arms around your neck” as “punch you in your whole face.”
The title track is a fuzzy, retro rocker, where she tells us that “the truth about love/is it’s all a lie,” while “How Come You’re Not Here” is an interesting fusion of punk rock and, for kicks, a xylophone, which somehow works with the fleeting references to childhood lyrics like “Are you underneath the bed?” and a subtle jab at her ex’s choice to pick someone who will get “carded for beer.”
Pink abandons her traditional punk mentality for a more exposed one on tracks like “Try,” where her soulful voice almost distracts from hokey lines like, “Where there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burned.”
She continues baring her soul on a duet with fun. frontman Nate Ruess on “Just Give Me a Reason,” where the two lament about the state of a broken relationship. However, it would have been nice for someone opposite her to match her expressiveness; her raw, emotional delivery on the chorus completely overwhelms Ruess.
The slow, guitar-backed “Beam Me Up” seems more at home on a country soundtrack, but succeeds in continuing to reveal the sensitive side of the singer.
Whether she’s being sensitive or sassy, Pink makes sure that her songs are as raw and real as they were a decade ago. Especially with today’s abundance of bubble-gum pop confections, it is nice to know there’s an artist who is willing to forgo the sweet for the sour.
