Review: Pink and Lizzo make mature, non-icky empowerment pop

Pop Music Critic Pink and Lizzo both begin their new albums with funny, blaring, slightly rough-edged retro-R&B numbers in which each woman addresses a man who’s done her wrong — or is sure to in the future. These songs — from Pink’s “Hurts 2B Human,” due Friday, and Lizzo’s “Cuz I Love You,” which came out last week — are just one point of overlap between two singers offering affirmation in a pop scene filled with gloom. In “Happy,” Pink vividly recounts the years she’s spent hating her body, while Lizzo revels in her confidence in “Tempo,” a collaboration with Missy Elliott in which she declares that “slow songs, they for skinny hoes / Can’t move all of this here to one of those.” Different sides of a coin, clearly — yet both songs open up a valuable space in pop to think through what we’ve been trained to believe about women’s beauty. “Juice,” with a guitar lick Nile Rodgers would envy, is ’80s pop-soul perfection; “Cry Baby” throbs like vintage Prince ; “Tempo” somehow finds room for Lizzo’s flute playing over a minimal club beat. Only wait: “Let’s open the window,” she sings, “and let the world know.” _____________ Pink “Hurts 2B Human” Lizzo “Cuz I Love You” [email protected] Twitter: @mikaelwood