Although it hardly deserved it, Try This -- P!nk's 2003 sequel to her 2001 artistic and commercial breakthrough, M!ssundaztood -- turned out to be something of a flop, selling considerably less than its predecessor and generating no true hit singles. Perhaps this downturn in sales was due to the harder rock direction she pursued on Try This, perhaps the songs she co-wrote with Rancid's Tim Armstrong weren't quite pop even if they were poppy, perhaps it was just a matter of timing, but the album just didn't click with a larger audience, through no fault of the music, which was the equal to that on M!ssundaztood. When faced with such a commercial disappointment, some artists would crawl back to what made them a star, but not P!nk. Although she does pump up the dance on 2006's I'm Not Dead, it's way too simple to call the album a return to "Get the Party Started" -- P!nk is far too complex to do something so straightforward. No, P!nk is complicated, often seemingly contradictory: she tears down "porno paparazzi girls" like Paris Hilton just as easily as she flaunts her bling on "'Cuz I Can"; she celebrates that "I Got Money Now"; she'll swagger and snarl and swear like a sailor, then turn around and write sweet songs of support to a teenager, or a knowingly melancholy reflection like "I Got Money Now"; she'll collaborate with Britney Spears hitmaker Max Martin on one track, then turn around and bring in the Indigo Girls for support on a stripped-down protest song. She'll try anything, and she does on I'm Not Dead. It Ping-Pongs between dense dancefloor anthems and fuzzy power pop, acoustic folk-rock and anthemic power ballads, hard rock tunes powered by electronic beats and dance tunes sung with the zeal of a rocker. It's not just that P!nk tries a lot of different sounds, it's that she seizes the freedom to hurl insults at both George W. Bush and a sleazoid who tried to pick her up at a bar, or to end a chorus with a chant of "Ice cream, ice cream/We all want ice cream." Far from sounding cow-towed by the reaction to Try This, P!nk sounds liberated, making music that's far riskier and stranger than anything else in mainstream pop in 2006. And it's a testament to her power as both a musician and a persona that for this record, even though she's working with singer/songwriter Butch Walker, Max Martin, and Teddy Geiger's cohort, Billy Mann -- her most mainstream collaborators since LA Reid and Babyface helmed her 2000 debut, Can't Take Me Home -- she sounds the strangest she ever has, and that's a positively thrilling thing to hear. That's because she not only sounds strange, she sounds stronger as a writer and singer, as convincing when she's singing the bluesy, acoustic "The One That Got Away" as when she's taunting and teasing on "Stupid Girls" or "U + Ur Hand" or when she's singing a propulsive piece of pure pop like "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)." In other words, she sounds complex: smart, funny, sexy, catchy, and best of all, surprising and unpredictable. This is the third album in a row where she's thrown a curve ball, confounding expectations by delivering a record that's wilder, stronger, and better than the last. And while that's no guarantee that I'm Not Dead will be a bigger hit than Try This, at least it's proof positive that there are few pop musicians more exciting in the 2000s than P!nk.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Most of this album finds Sparks doing what they do best: spewing out clever, mile-a-minute lyrics over solid-rocking accompaniment (this time, provided by a superior group of studio musicians). Drummer Hilly Michaels and guitarist Jeffrey Salen lend the Mael brothers' songs considerable rock & roll authority. Standouts include the opening blast, "Big Boy" (which was featured in the film Rollercoaster), the propulsive "Fill-Er-Up," and the falsetto-delivered proclamation "I Like Girls," apparently a leftover from their previous album, Indiscreet. Generally, however, they eschew the elaborate arrangements of Indiscreet and go for a powerful, stripped-down sound. As titles such as "Everybody's Stupid" and "Thrown Her Away (And Get a New One)" suggest, the album brims with decidedly politically incorrect (and often hilarious) lyrics. © James A. Gardner /TiVo

A film adaptation of a stage-musical adaptation of a film (Tina Fey's landmark 2004 teen comedy), 2024's Mean Girls distills the 2018 Broadway musical into a movie with a soundtrack that, at 34 minutes, has half the runtime of the cast album. (A few short musical numbers that do appear in the film, such as reprises, "Kevin G's Rap," and the Christmas routine, were omitted from the soundtrack.) On what remains, the main soloists include seductive powerhouse vocalist Reneé Rapp as leader of the Plastics (the mean girls), demure-voiced Angourie Rice as formerly home-schooled new girl Cady, and Auli’I Cravalho, aka Disney's original Moana, as combat boots-sporting Plastics nemesis Janis. All three leads are strong and distinct, and they're joined here by impressive one-off soloists Bebe Wood as Gretchen (self-conscious highlight "What's Wrong with Me?") and Avantika as Karen (the not-self-conscious "Sexy"), as well as by supporting cast members like Jaquel Spivey as Damian Hubbard and Tim Meadows, who reprises the role of Mr. Duvall from the original film. While the casting is solid, and some updates were made to both characters and content even since 2018, the source material's casual and weaponized fatphobia endure. Notably, the film's two new songs concentrate wholly on self-love, if from different angles (Rice's "What Ifs" and closing pop song "Not My Fault" featuring Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion). Both the 2018 cast album and the 2024 soundtrack landed in the Billboard 200.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

A film adaptation of a stage-musical adaptation of a film (Tina Fey's landmark 2004 teen comedy), 2024's Mean Girls distills the 2018 Broadway musical into a movie with a soundtrack that, at 34 minutes, has half the runtime of the cast album. (A few short musical numbers that do appear in the film, such as reprises, "Kevin G's Rap," and the Christmas routine, were omitted from the soundtrack.) On what remains, the main soloists include seductive powerhouse vocalist Reneé Rapp as leader of the Plastics (the mean girls), demure-voiced Angourie Rice as formerly home-schooled new girl Cady, and Auli’I Cravalho, aka Disney's original Moana, as combat boots-sporting Plastics nemesis Janis. All three leads are strong and distinct, and they're joined here by impressive one-off soloists Bebe Wood as Gretchen (self-conscious highlight "What's Wrong with Me?") and Avantika as Karen (the not-self-conscious "Sexy"), as well as by supporting cast members like Jaquel Spivey as Damian Hubbard and Tim Meadows, who reprises the role of Mr. Duvall from the original film. While the casting is solid, and some updates were made to both characters and content even since 2018, the source material's casual and weaponized fatphobia endure. Notably, the film's two new songs concentrate wholly on self-love, if from different angles (Rice's "What Ifs" and closing pop song "Not My Fault" featuring Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion). Both the 2018 cast album and the 2024 soundtrack landed in the Billboard 200.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo