Popster Pink: Color Her Ambitious

The party has started for singer Pink, who has a hit album and rising name recognition. But watch this week to see how big the celebration will get. The colorful singer (best known to casual pop fans as one of the singers on the Grammy-winning “Lady Marmalade” remake) is preparing for her first headlining tour, and early ticket sales this week are being watched by industry observers trying to gauge her star’s trajectory.

“She has not done any headlining dates to speak of, so it’s not the most conservative thing to put her in theaters and large clubs at this point,” notes Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication. “Usually with an artist like this, you would start off with small-club runs. We’ll find out if she can sell tickets on her own. There’s always that intangible factor where this might be somebody people like to hear on the radio but it’s hard to say whether they will want to pay for a ticket.”

Pink’s sophomore album, “Missundaztood,” is poised this week to crack the 2-million mark in the U.S., and the disc has been a steady presence for 16 weeks in the top 10 of SoundScan’s weekly tallies of the nation’s bestsellers. Her sound, grounded in R&B; but with an increasingly eclectic mix of other sounds, has also earned critical success: Her hit “Get This Party Started” landed at No. 5 on a Village Voice poll of the best singles of 2001 that surveyed more than 600 music critics.

Pink will be in Los Angeles later this month to film a video for a new single, “Just Like a Pill.” Videos have played a large part in establishing her name in R&B; and pop, but the solo concert stage is a new frontier for her. Mark Schimmel, senior vice president of marketing and artist relations for Arista Records, Pink’s label, said the young singer is ready to prove herself.

Pink’s tour starts May 2 in Phoenix and closes on June 28 in Los Angeles at the Wiltern Theatre. After that, she will return to the touring life in support of Lenny Kravitz.

Compiled by Times staff writers