Music: There’s nothing girlie about Pink

Jul 6 2007 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

US singer, Pink, performing _158

Controversial American singer Pink brings her powerful message to Liverpool. Emma Johnson reports

IN THE video for her smash hit Stupid Girls, US singer Pink lampooned the antics of young Hollywood’s pack of vacuous blondes dominating the media.

She sang: “They travel in packs of two or three /With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees.”

Now as Paris Hilton returns to the spotlight after a spell in the slammer, Lindsay Lohan languishes in rehab and Nicole Richie prepares for her own day in court on a DUI charge, Pink must be feeling pretty vindicated.

In contrast to their woes, at the age of 27 Pink is one of America’s most successful singing stars with a worldwide fan base, and next week will greet her fans in Liverpool for the first time with a sell-out date at the Summer Pops.

She released her fourth studio album, I'm Not Dead, last year and to date has sold over 25m albums, winning fans of all ages with her gutsy lyrics and catchy tunes.

“Stupid Girls was the most fun video I have ever made in my life. It was the most fun time a girl could ever have, more fun than humans should be allowed,” she laughs.

“It’s about everyone and no one,” Pink adds of the controversial track. “I live in LA and it’s all around me, it’s everything we see on television. I wrote it because I think there should be a choice, and there’s not a choice being given right now. It’s their way or the highway, and I’m the highway. It’s a fun song; it’s all in good fun.”

Pink has always worked hard to distance herself from bubblegum pop acts like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. With songs like Family Portrait – which told of her own anger at her parents’ divorce – and Just Like a Pill, she has always portrayed herself as a girl who won’t stand for being messed with, who sets her own agenda and blazes her own trail.

A strict vegan and an animal rights supporter she has, in the past, criticised her peers (like Beyoncé) for wearing fur and reportedly wrote a letter to the Royal Family condemning the Royal Guards’ use of bearskin.

“The way I was raised by my Dad, who is a Vietnam veteran, was to stand up for myself and to thine own self be true and, you know, sometimes you have to stand alone for what you believe in,” she says, referring to her apparent inability to bite her tongue.

“At the end of the day, if you can look yourself in the mirror, that's really all that matters.”

Born Alecia Moore in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Pink grew up in Philadelphia. Something of a wild child, she was performing in the city’s clubs by the age of 14. Her debut album, Can't Take Me Home, released in 2000, went double platinum in the US and produced two US Top 10 singles.

She first came on the radar in the UK with the track You Make Me Sick but it was with the album Missundaztood that she established herself as a credible singer/songwriter. She deals with the issues which plagued her as a young girl in the track Conversations with my 13-Year-Old Self.

“When I was 13, I was angry, bitter, and goofy. I’m very a cover up the pain and laugh type,” she recalls.

“But that’s how I was when I was 13. I was angry, lonely, confused, and experimental and just searching for a way out.