Can't Take Me Home

Pink's a gal with problems. No. 1: men — her debut, Can't Take Me Home, is seething with angry (often amusing) rants about not taking crap from them. She doesn't mention any by name but we'll collectively refer to them as, oh, I dunno... Floyd. Floyd's no scrub — but he dumps Pink for another woman. Then he wants her back. But she hates him so much right now...

Problem No. 2: her dark side. In the video for ''There You Go'' — her smash single — the piqued Pink freaks, sending a motorcycle crashing into Floyd's fab bachelor pad. But it goes deeper than anger management issues. Pink cops to her condition on ''Split Personality,'' the album's schizoid opening track: ''You don't know me well enough to label me sick, or even disturbed/When you break it down I'm just two girls..../Everybody's got insanities/I got a split personality.'' This does not bode well for Floyd. ''You don't wanna see the other side of me/So I'mma hit you off/And I'mma set you free,'' she sings on ''Private Show,'' sounding like R&B's answer to Fiona Apple.

Problem No. 3: Pink is not R&B's answer to Fiona Apple. Home — produced by a host of slick urban auteurs, including Kevin ''She'kspere'' Briggs and Babyface — sounds as familiar as your doorbell; there's hardly an original musical moment on it. Most transparently, Briggs' ''There You Go'' is remarkably similar to his hits for Destiny's Child (''Bills, Bills, Bills'') and TLC (''No Scrubs''), but minus the vocal interplay that gives those tunes their punch. So while problems 1 and 2 make for some feisty fun, problem 3 is, well, a problem. All in all, Home's just another brick in the R&B wall. C+

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