Record Reviews

Pink

Album: “Beautiful Trauma”

Grade: C-

Things are not as perfect as they might seem in the land of Pink. The three-time Grammy winner may have loads of money, two kids and an 11-year marriage, but her new album is filled with unease and regret.

“Freeze frame, pause, rewind, stop,” she sings on “Beautiful Trauma,” a 13-track CD that taps into what could be called soccer-mom angst. Success hasn’t made Pink happier: “Now I’m here and all I wanna do/ Is go back to playing Barbies in my room.”

It’s a carefully curated, slick album of bitter songs from a singer returning to pop after five years away. She’s usually an icon of empowerment and strength, but here seems defeated. Among the missteps is a duet with Eminem that sounds like it was rejected five years ago when the pair last collaborated and the dance song “Secrets” that makes Pink sound like Kylie Minogue, only more vapid.

Pink is 38 now and the music landscape has changed. Bad love is Pink’s thing now, even though Lorde and Halsey seem to have the corner on confessional pop.

Pink’s voice is better than ever, and she’s leaned on A-list producers – including Greg Kurstin, Max Martin and Jack Antonoff – but this is basically a breakup album from a woman in a committed relationship. If there’s any social commentary, it is too muted.

“Beautiful Trauma” has plenty of swelling strings and a choir, slow piano moments meant to be meaningful, occasional swearing to keep it real for the kids and utter musical bombast, almost venturing into Meat Loaf’s operatic self-indulgence.

By the end, Pink utterly tips into parody with the overwrought “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken” and the tiresome torch song “You Get My Love.” This CD might be about trauma, but it’s not always beautiful.

— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Robert Plant

Album: “Carry Fire”

Grade: A

One of the weirder chapters in rock history happened in 2014. That’s when Led Zeppelin won a Grammy for best rock album for a 7-year-old concert recording while the band’s former frontman Robert Plant somehow didn’t even scrounge up a nomination for easily one of the best albums of the year.

Three years later, let’s hope the future doesn’t again get overshadowed by the past.

The 11-track “Carry Fire” finds Plant backed by his talented band, the Sensational Space Shifters, and thrillingly exploring the same fascinating terrain of rootsy folk and achy blues.

If 2014’s “Lullaby and ... The Ceaseless Roar” seemed very personal and soaked in heartbreak, the new album has Plant in a somewhat happier place and looking to the horizon, perhaps becoming more political.

“New World” is a bitter look at the way we treat immigrants, “Carving Up the World Again” mocks border walls and “Bones of a Saint” coolly dispatches religious fervor. He pushes deeper than ever into Middle Eastern sounds with the outstanding title track, an exhilarating multicultural triumph.

There are few undisputed rock stars this accomplished still taking musical risks. Plant’s songwriting remains a class above, even as he nears 70. “Out here the fire’s still burning/ So long into my night,” he sings. Long may it burn.

— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Beck

Album: “Colors”

Grade: B+

Singer-songwriter Beck has never been very good at hiding how he’s feeling. If you made it through the defeated melancholy of “Sea Change” without wanting to hurl yourself off a cliff, congrats. But the thing is, Beck doesn’t hide when he’s happy, either.

A very different Beck comes across on “Colors,” a hook- driven bubbly CD he made with in-demand producer Greg Kurstin, best known for his work with Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Sia and the Foo Fighters. Beck might be known more for his finely tuned downer rock, but he’s mostly angst-free here.

One song is even titled “I’m So Free.” (The new tune “Fix Me” – a perfect title for the old Beck – turns out not to be mournful at all.)

The 10-track “Colors” is Beck’s most accessible, radio-friendly offering in years but, this being Beck, it’s brilliantly layered, with plenty of interesting things happening under the hood. There’s pan flute, handclaps and glockenspiel on it, for goodness’ sake.

— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press