Pink Says Next Album To Have Live Band, Unexpected Influences

Pop/R&B singer/songwriter says follow-up to Can't Take Me Home will be 'Annie Lennox meets Method Man.'

Senior Writer Brian Hiatt reports:

Pop/R&B singer Pink has begun writing songs for the follow-up to her debut album, Can't Take Me Home, and she said it could feature a live band and some unexpected influences.

"I'm writing now - [it's going to be] Annie Lennox meets Method Man," Pink said backstage last month at the MTV Video Music Awards. "But live this time, because I might be able to afford a band."

The rosy-haired singer continues to climb the charts with "Most Girls" (RealAudio excerpt), the second single from her first CD, which was released in April.

Pink's follow-up album is tentatively due in the summer, with recording set to begin in January or February, according to Pink (born Alicia Moore) and her manager, Jim Moore.

"I think she wants to do some experimentation with some new stuff," Moore, who is also the 21- year-old singer's father, said Tuesday. "She can sing just about anything ... from country to R&B. She wants to really show the versatility."

Can't Take Me Home (RealAudio excerpt of title cut), driven by slick, up-to-the-minute R&B tracks from such hitmaking producers as Babyface, Arista Records President Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, recently was certified platinum. It may spawn two or three more singles, according to Moore.

But Pink said she's ready to move beyond that album, which took four years to record. "It's been a long growth period," she said. "Now I'm, like, over it, and it's on to the next thing."

Music lawyer Bernard Resnick, who helped get Pink her record deal, said Pink's plans for her next album mesh well with her strengths as an artist.

"I think that would be a really cool, interesting project," Resnick said. "This girl can front a band - her whole raison d'être is live performance, so I definitely think that could work for her, a live-band atmosphere."

Pink, who toured with *NSync earlier this year, first hit radio and MTV with Can't Take Me Home's infectious "There You Go" (RealAudio excerpt), which melded acoustic guitar, bubbling synth, stop-start electronic drums and a kiss-off lyric.

[ Wed., October 11, 2000 3:00 AM EDT ]