Beautiful Trauma

With Beautiful Trauma then, Moore proves that she’s both still relevant, and a vital, confident female voice on the pop circuit who has impressively never really succumbed to the pressures of the overly-sexualised pop machine.

An album with dirgeful ballads, though they do at least let her show off her excellent voice. [Dec 2017, p.109]

Secure behind the protective pop wall erected by producers such as Max Martin and the ubiquitous Greg Kurstin, there’s little room for originality here. Which may be for the best, given the mid-album limpness imposed by the gratingly wistful, cello-draped childhood yearning of “Barbies”, which oozes insincerity. Pink’s on safer ground riding the pumping pop-funk of “Secrets” and the title-track.

Beautiful Trauma's neat construction renders the album less than the sum of its parts, but individual songs work well enough, thanks in no small part to Pink's personality and charisma.

Trauma's chilled-out middle sags, but "Revenge," her bad-romance duet with Eminem, is an early shot of energy; Max Martin and Shellback's homage to Dr. Dre's skip-step beats may be too on the nose, but Em's rhymes nicely recall a time when even lunatics rode bright hooks.

Overall, it does the job, but no more than that.

There's none of the emotional mess that has enlivened some of P!nk's best work, and while this sense of calm may be well earned, it does result in a tamer record.