Hurts 2B Human

by 
AlbumApr 26 / 201913 songs, 47m 9s
Adult Contemporary
Noteable

“*Hurts 2B Human* was sort of a pebble that rolled downhill and became this boulder,” P!nk told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “It just kept steamrolling.” In 2018, while touring her seventh album, *Beautiful Trauma*, the singer found herself in spontaneous recording sessions with musicians she’d never worked with before (Beck, Sia, Chris Stapleton, Cash Cash, Wrabel, Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, and many others). Eventually, she realized she\'d made album number eight—a lightly political package of sentimental ballads and pregame bangers that feels like classic P!nk. The topical numbers speak to the times. “The news will try to make you believe that everybody hates each other, and it’s just not true,” she said about the inspiration behind the title track, which features Khalid and was written by Teddy Geiger (best known for authoring some of Shawn Mendes’ biggest hits). “I am a woman, Khalid is a man, he’s African American, I’m Jewish... Everybody has their own experience and is going through something, so it’s all about the circle you create around you to get through all the bullshit in this world. That’s where this song came from.” In the EDM-inspired \"Can We Pretend” featuring Cash Cash, she asks rhetorical questions in an effort to escape reality: “Can we pretend that we will fight the president?/Can we pretend that we all end up okay?” Dizzying synths storm in before there’s time to ponder the answer, nudging listeners to let go and live in the moment.

Pink - Hurts 2B Human

The singer teams with Chris Stapleton, Khalid and more on her passionately confessional eighth LP

Despite the evident angst within its title, Hurts 2B Human is generally a light affair from P!

7 / 10

Laid back, and playing to her strengths, P!nk’s eighth studio album ‘Hurts 2B Human’ is familiar in its musical stylings – a

The album settles into a torpor of self-examination that never rises above 120 beats per minute.

The singer’s eighth album reflects on love, loss and maturity, but it seems to tread familiar ground<strong> </strong>

Pink sings with her trademark conviction, but the writing tends towards the formulaic

Look behind the lyrics of some of P!nk’s biggest hits, and you’ll see that those powerhouse vocals and big pop-rock choruses have always been used to distract from a certain vulnerability. But even by that standard, eighth album Hurts 2B Human might be her most plainspoken yet, with frank songs that tackle therapy, anxiety and motherhood nestled amongst the pop juggernauts you’d expect from an album that counts Max Martin, Shellback and Greg Kurstin amongst its cast of contributors.