P!nk
Funhouse
Release Date: Oct 28, 2008
Genre(s): Rock, Dance, Pop
Record label: LaFace
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Album Review: Funhouse by P!nk
Fairly Good, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
Richard Thompson compared his bumpy marriage to Linda Thompson to a roller coaster named "the Wall of Death" and Pink picks up this carnivalesque thread, calling her troubled relationship with motocross star Carey Hart a Funhouse on her own entry into a long prestigious line of autobiographical divorce albums that stretches back to Blood on the Tracks. Naturally, Funhouse doesn't have any musical similarities with either Blood or Shoot Out the Lights, but Pink's divorce album is also emotionally different than either of these classics or Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear. Dylan, Thompson, and Gaye layer their albums with self-recriminations and ruminations, niceties that Pink shrugs off in one song, the brooding "I Don't Believe You.
Based on rating 3/5
Two Grammy Awards, eight Top 10 singles, 25 million album sales: when you listen to pop-punk rocker Pink you realise why she's done so well thus far; she's an exhibitionist who's chanelled past problems with drugs and family into something both catchy and heartfelt. Her new album lays into her ex-husband with devilish choruses and potent hooks, notably on the spunky 'One Foot Wrong' and 'Funhouse'. .
Based on rating 3/5
The difference between Pink and well-groomed competitors such as Christina Aguilera is that while they may secretly yearn to sing couplets like "I'll find a new place/ Burn this fucker down", Pink actually does it (on the title track), and sounds as if she means it. Perhaps it's a coincidence that her fifth album shares its title with that of the Stooges' 1970 bombshell, but I'd like to think not: it would make Funhouse even better if it turned out that its nakedness was inspired by Iggy Pop's contortions. The musclebound No 1 single So What sounds like something a female, poppy Iggy might have created, and there's also a connection, in spirit at least, between Pink and Pop on the slow, queasy One Foot Wrong, which recounts a bad acid trip.
Based on rating 3/5
The otherwise likeably raunchy and bratty Pink is now officially walking a fine line, leaning dangerously close to the humdrum. While her writing talents have improved greatly over the last few albums, her lyrics still ache with the standard mix of narcissism, self-loathing and angst - all now officially maudlin in their execution. A pity, since Pink is more than capable of carrying the rolling piano ballads, slick alt-pop and acoustic numbers that make up the bulk of Funhouse.
Based on rating C
Set in a dilapidated Veterans Administration hospital, Article 99 may be the first medical melodrama that isn’t about dedicated physicians performing life-saving acts of valor. It’s about dedicated physicians not performing life- saving acts of valor: Their hands are tied by the crisis in veterans’ health care — the calamitous lack of funding, the red tape, the increasingly prevalent policy of refusing to cover conditions (such as heart problems) that aren’t directly related to military service. To function as doctors, the movie’s heroes have to become outlaws in their own hospital.
'Funhouse'
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