What happened to the dream of a girl president? She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

10/12/06 : I'm Not Dead - P!nk

I've often quite liked P!nk's singles and I admire her general fts attitude, but I'm not aware that I've ever listened to a full album of hers - I'm expecting it to be fine, although possibly a little samey.

It's a strong opening with "Stupid Girls" sounding even more relevant today than it would have done back then with its suggestion that acting smart isn't necessarily the easiest way to achieve recognition as a woman out there.  And "Who Knew" is a pretty rocking second track as well - but, all in all, it's not a bad selection and there's more variety than I was expecting.  A lot of it has a strong Garbage vibe with strong beats and a strong feminist message - and there are worst things the kids could be listening to.  I'm not sure I needed a full hour of it, but there have been far worse albums I've been subjected to and it's nice to break my P!nk duck.

We're already all the way down at #12 in the charts this week on her 36th week of an 84 week run, having peaked at #3 in her first week.  All in all, it's a good effort from the lass - and she managed another sixteen weeks on another three runs, last being seen in February '09.  The top five this week are Take That, Oasis (a best of), Westlife, Il Divo and U2 (another best of) and the reason we're down at #12 this week is the plethora of best ofs from The Beatles, Girls Aloud, George Michael, Jamiroquai and Sugababes - there's also an absolute abomination from the Fron Male Voice Choir whoever they are.  We've got our highest ranking new entry of the year with Gwen Stefani at #26 and there are another SEVEN in the chart - that's where they were hiding!

Wikipedia has more than I expected on the album (221 milliPeppers) which tells us that her previous album wasn't so successful so she decided to grow up a bit and reaped the results.  It also tells me that I'm completely wrong about "Stupid Girls" having a strong feminist message because the official feminist website (or something) tells me "Pink shits on these women who are too stupid to break out of the chains of patriarchy by harshly judging their promiscuity and blaming them for 'giving in' to sexist tropes" - I'm SO confused now.  There's also an amusing tale about "U + Ur Hand" which is a slightly risque song (but not by today's standards!) that she was going to sing on American Idol so they asked her to rewrite it, to which she said "You want me to rewrite my song for you. For American fucking Idol?".

The album was generally well received by the critics (except by the official feminists) and very well received by the public - #1 in quite a few countries, #6 in the US and it made a lot of end of year lists.  In the UK, it was the ninth best selling album of 2006 (which, somewhat surprisingly, makes this the least successful album we've seen so far this year), the 46th best of 2007 and the 199th of 2008 - it was waaaaaay more popular that I remembered.

"Customers also listened to" Kelly Clarkson, Christine Aguilera and Lily Allen - some fine ladies there and, errrr, Rag'n'Bone Man (they did a duet together).  I didn't mind this at all - I don't think I'll be rushing back to it, but it was kinda fun to listen to and there are far worse out there (sorry, official feminists, but it's true!).

03/12/06 - In which I struggle to understand the fuss...
17/12/06 - An album I'd completely forgotten about

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