Album Review: P!nk, ‘Trustfall’

In the time between her dismal Hurts 2B Human album and Trustfall, her latest studio effort, P!nk has received several “icon awards” from a plethora of different awards bodies. Icon Awards from both the Billboard Music Awards and the iHeartRadio Music Awards, the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award from MTV’s Video Music Awards, and the Legend of Live honor from the Billboard Live Music Awards — anything to convince or remind us (take your pick) that P!nk has ascended to an exclusive tier of impact and success in the pop music ecosystem. Her longevity is notable — she’s been churning out platinum Top 10 albums for two decades and counting — as are her contributions to the progression of physicality in live music performance, so such honors aren’t completely unfounded. Yet, musically, P!nk’s latest material is less the work of an icon and more the work of a pop star who would rather rest on the predictability of past sounds than take risks in the pursuit of artistic evolution. A largely hackneyed and uninteresting album, Trustfall rarely rises above the worst motifs of adult contemporary radio fodder — nondescript empowerment anthems, dull tradeoffs between tired synths and sleepy acoustic guitar, and a generally inoffensive bent that results in songs that are far too disposable for a voice as strong as P!nk’s.

Consisting of thirteen songs with varying degrees of facelessness, Trustfall would have been a snooze regardless of how it was sequenced. Luckily, P!nk placed the album’s best song at the very top of the tracklist. “When I Get There,” a somber ballad dedicated to her late father, gives the “So What” singer lyrics and production that are worthy of her voice. Over doleful country-inflected guitar and piano, P!nk sings “You'd say it, you were never one to hesitate / You were always first in line, so why would it be different for Heaven?” It’s one of the only instances on the album where cliché works. Here, the clichés evoke the warmth of reflecting on a lost loved one instead of feeling like empty platitudes on songs concerned with superficial empowerment. After “When I Get There,” Trustfall launches into a mind-numbing cycle of cheap synth-pop dance-adjacent numbers and drowsy singer-songwriter acoustic pop. The title track sounds dated from the first six seconds, the safest possible take on Fred Again’s already inoffensive synth patterns. Like the rest of the dance tracks on Trustfall, the energy of these songs is far too clinical. P!nk’s voice is best served by live instrumentation, so plopping her vocals over some of the most emotionless beats of the year strips Trustfall of its color and intimacy. For an album that sources its title from a literal trust-building exercise and begins with a meditation on grief, Trustfall is one of P!nk’s phlegmatic records. It’s plastic.

RCA

Lead single “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” is absolutely terrible, a hollow parody of a bad Trolls era Justin Timberlake song that ironically sounds bleaker than the circumstances that framed its creation. “I want my life to be a Whitney Houston song / I got all good luck and zero fucks, don't care if I belong,” she signs unconvincingly. “Turbulence” brings to mind Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally” in the sense that some words are just too clumsy and awkward to be built into hooks. Of course, another dose of sterile production makes matters even more unimpressive. When P!nk isn’t stuck in a passé loop of stuttering synths, she shifts into a lane closer to the tender folk-pop of her 2014 Dallas Green collaborative album Rose Ave. She calls up The Lumineers for “Long Way To Go,” a largely fine song that becomes worthwhile once the drums crash into the bridge and their voices harmonize in the final chorus. First Aid Kit guests on “Kids In Love,” a slightly poppier take on the overly serious indie bravado of 2010s Williamsburg. There’s also “Last Call,” an apocalyptic campfire song that somehow still manages to sound painfully mundane, as well as “Hate Me” a watered-down take on her past power pop/pop-rock bangers like “Raise Your Glass” and “So What.”

Once the album chugs through a few throwaway ballads, P!nk reunites with Chris Stapleton for “Just Say I’m Sorry.” Undoubtedly the saving grace of the back half of the album, “Just Say I’m Sorry” reasserts both P!nk and Chris’s chemistry and how good the “What About Us” singer sounds over country-infused acoustic pop. As strong as its opening and closing tracks are, Trustfall simply doesn’t have enough moments of interest or triumph to warrant its existence. P!nk’s latest album isn’t horrible, it’s gravely uninteresting and nugatory which is a much bigger crime.

Key Tracks: “When I Get There” | “Just Say I’m Sorry” | “Long Way To Go”

Score: 52