Pink (singer)

Alecia Beth Moore-Hart (née Moore; born September 8, 1979), known professionally as Pink (stylized as P!NK), is an American singer and songwriter. She is known for her acrobatic stage presence and activism.

Aged 15, Pink formed the short-lived girl group Choice, who signed with LaFace Records in 1995, although they disbanded without major releases. Her first solo album, Can't Take Me Home (2000), was released to commercial success and received double platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Produced by label boss Babyface and influenced by contemporary R&B, the album spawned US Billboard Hot 100-top ten singles: "There You Go" and "Most Girls". Pink gained further recognition for her 2001 collaborative single "Lady Marmalade" from the soundtrack of Moulin Rouge!, which peaked atop 13 international charts, including the US, and earned her first Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Pink shifted to pop rock with her second album, Missundaztood (2001), which sold over 13 million copies worldwide and yielded three top ten singles: "Get the Party Started", "Don't Let Me Get Me", and "Just Like a Pill".

While Pink's third album, Try This (2003), sold significantly less than her second album, it earned a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Her fourth and fifth studio albums, I'm Not Dead (2006) and Funhouse (2008), saw a commercial rebound and spawned the top-ten singles "Who Knew" and "U + Ur Hand", as well as the US number-one single "So What". She scored her third and fourth US number-ones with "Raise Your Glass", as well as "Just Give Me a Reason" from her sixth album, The Truth About Love (2012), which became her first to top the US Billboard 200. In 2014, Pink formed the collaborative folk duo You+Me with Dallas Green, and released the album Rose Ave.. Her following albums, Beautiful Trauma (2017) and Hurts 2B Human (2019), saw success and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with the former becoming the third best-selling album of that year worldwide. Her ninth and latest studio album, Trustfall (2023), peaked at number two on the chart.

Pink has sold over 135 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Pink is the most-played female solo artist in the UK during the 21st century, while Billboard named Pink the Pop Songs Artist of the 2000s Decade. Her accolades include three Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award and seven MTV Video Music Awards and two MTV Europe Music Awards. At the 63rd BMI Pop Awards, she received the BMI President's Award for "her outstanding achievement in songwriting and global impact on pop culture and the entertainment industry", and was honored with the People's Champion Award, the iHeartRadio Music Award Icon Award. Billboard named Pink the 2013 Woman of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music and honored her with the Billboard Icon Award and the Billboard Legend of Live. VH1 ranked her 10th on its list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music.

Early life and family

Alecia Beth Moore was born on September 8, 1979, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to emergency room nurse Judith Moore (née Kugel) and insurance salesman James Moore. She has described herself as an "Irish-German-Lithuanian Jew", and her mother is Jewish. Although a healthy baby, she developed asthma that plagued her through her early years. When Pink was a toddler, her parents began having marital problems; they divorced before she was 10.

Pink was trained as a competitive gymnast between the ages 4 and 12. She attended Central Bucks High School West. In high school, Pink joined her first band, Middleground, but it disbanded upon losing a Battle of the Bands competition. As a teenager, she wrote lyrics as an outlet for her feelings, and her mother commented, "Her initial writings were always very introspective. Some of it was very black, and very deep, almost worrisome."

Pink began performing in Philadelphia clubs when she was about 14 years old. She adopted her nickname "Pink" as her stage name around this time. She has given different explanations about how she came to be given that nickname, which she has had since she was a child. At 14, she was convinced to audition to become a member of the all-female group Basic Instinct, and earned a spot in the lineup. Ultimately, the group disbanded without releasing any material.

Career

1995–1998: Career beginnings

At 15, Pink and two other teenage girls, Sharon Flanagan and Chrissy Conway, formed the R&B group Choice. A copy of their first song, "Key to My Heart", was sent to LaFace Records in Atlanta, Georgia, where L.A. Reid overheard it and arranged for the group to fly there so he could see them perform. Afterward, he signed them to a recording contract with the label. Since the three girls were under 18 at the time, their parents had to cosign the contract. The group relocated to the label's then-headquarters in Atlanta to record an album. Despite it failing to see a commercial release, their song "Key to My Heart" appeared on the soundtrack to the 1996 film Kazaam. During a Christmas party, Reid gave Pink an ultimatum: "go solo or go home." Choice subsequently disbanded in 1998.

1999–2002: Can't Take Me Home and Missundaztood

After Choice disbanded, Pink signed a recording contract with LaFace Records and began working on her first solo album with producers such as Babyface, Kandi Burruss and Tricky Stewart. Her first solo single, "There You Go", was released in February 2000 and became her first top-ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it peaked at number seven. Internationally, the song also charted inside the top ten in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In April, Pink's album, Can't Take Me Home, was released to commercial success. It peaked 26 on the Billboard 200 chart, and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for two million units shipped in the U.S. It also went platinum in the United Kingdom and multi-platinum in Australia and Canada, while selling over four million copies worldwide. Critical reception to the album was mixed. The album's second single, "Most Girls", peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her first chart-topping single in Australia. "You Make Me Sick" was released as the final single and reached number 33 on the Hot 100.

Pink won the trophy for Female New Artist of the Year at the 2000 Billboard Music Awards. She was billed as a supporting act on the North American leg of NSYNC's No Strings Attached Tour throughout the summer of 2000. In 2001, Pink, alongside singers Christina Aguilera and Mýa as well as rapper Lil' Kim, performed a cover of "Lady Marmalade" for the soundtrack of the film Moulin Rouge!. In the US it became the most successful airplay-only single in history, as well as Pink's first No. 1 single. The success of the single was helped by its music video, which was popular on music channels and won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year. The song won Pink's first Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Tired of being marketed as another cookie cutter pop act, as well as eager both to be seen as a more serious songwriter and musician and to perform the type of music she wanted to, Pink took her sound in a new direction and sought more artistic or creative control during the recording of her second album, Missundaztood. She recruited Linda Perry, former singer of 4 Non Blondes (one of Pink's favorite groups in her teenage years). Pink moved into Perry's Los Angeles home where the pair spent several months writing songs for the album. Perry co-wrote and co-produced the album with Dallas Austin and Scott Storch, and according to VH1's Driven program, Antonio "LA" Reid of LaFace Records was not initially content with the new music Pink was making. The album, named Missundaztood because of Pink's belief that people had a wrong image of her, was released in November 2001.