P!NK

The Risk of Not Being a Puppet

Alecia Beth Moore signed her first record deal at age 16 with the group Choice. The trio never released anything, but it led L.A. Reid to see her as a profitable product for the late-'90s R&B market. In 2000 she released Can’t Take Me Home and sold two million copies in the United States. The pink hair was the only thing she controlled at that time.

The industry didn't know how to react.

In 2001, she decided she didn't want to keep performing prefabricated choreography or singing over synthetic beats that didn't feel like her own. She teamed up with Linda Perry, former frontwoman of 4 Non Blondes, to shape Missundaztood. It was a move that made the Arista Records executives nervous, since the shift toward pop rock was too abrupt for an artist who had only just started out.

The album sold 13 million units worldwide.

That move gave her a creative freedom that few artists of her generation keep after two decades in the business. But her ambition didn't stop at the recording studio. In 2003 she had her first serious brush with movies in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. It wasn't a leading role, but her physical presence and attitude fit the style of McG's production.

Acting and body control

Her relationship with the big screen has always been selective. She prefers projects where she can explore sides of herself that her public persona hides behind the acrobatics. In 2012 she shot Thanks for Sharing under the direction of Stuart Blumberg. In the credits she appeared as Alecia Moore and shared scenes with Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow, playing a sex addict in recovery.

Critics praised her naturalness.

Moore sees performance as an all-out physical display. In 2010, during the The Funhouse Summer Carnival tour, she began incorporating aerial gymnastics techniques into her concerts. It wasn't about using wires to float over the crowd. It was about performing highly demanding technical routines while singing live, without relying on pre-recorded backing tracks.

In 2021, she premiered the documentary P!NK: All I Know So Far on Amazon Prime Video. The film blends footage from her stadium tour with scenes of her family life and shows the logistics required to move a production of that scale around the planet. Michael Gracey, who directed The Greatest Showman, handled the directing and set out to capture the real exhaustion behind the spotlights.

But she always returns to the studio.

In 2023 she released Trustfall and once again landed near the top of the sales charts in the UK and Australia. The album features collaborations with artists like Chris Stapleton and First Aid Kit. The album's production went for a cleaner, less processed sound than her work from the mid-2000s.

The world tour behind this album raked in 350 million dollars during its 2023 leg. The stage production required 45 trucks to haul the stage and sound equipment between venues. In Europe alone, more than a million tickets sold in under two months.