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BeforePinkcould tell her fans “So what? I’m still a rock star,” she had to actually become one — and that’s exactly what she did with her sophomore album,Missundaztood, released on Nov. 20, 2001.
Second albums are notoriously make-or-break for artists, and Pink had a lot to live up to — and a lot of herself to reveal.
In the 20 years sinceMissundaztood’s release, Pink has solidified her niche in the music industry as a prolific creator of “autobiographical songs filled with attitude” (asDigital Spyput it), but in the lead-up to her second album, the singer was known more for R&B-infused jams like “There You Go.” She was also hot off the juggernaut success of the “Lady Marmalade” coverMissy Elliottproduced featuring megastars of the momentChristina Aguilera,MyaandLil' Kim.
Arista Records
AsMissundaztoodhits a milestone anniversary, we’re looking back at what the eventual Emmy and Grammy winner, now 42, has said about what the album meant to her. It wasn’t just an exercise in authentic artistry, it was in many ways an exorcism of past traumas and a way to show her fans — and record executives — that she was more than willing to fight and and flex way her way to fame.
The Lead Single: “Get the Party Started”
While Pink’s first single found her in a comfortable place — the dance floor (she was 22 after all) — the person she sought out as a collaborator gave a hint her direction as an artist was changing.
Pink had been a fan of 4 Non Blondes’Linda Perrysince she’d been singing their hit"What’s Up?“as a teen, but that came as a surprise to Perry.
“I saw what she looked like — she was a bling-bling girl — and I said, ‘I think you have the wrong Linda Perry,'” she toldRolling Stonein 2019.
Perry had stepped away from the microphone and into the production booth. Though she originally wrote “Get the Party Started” for Madonna (and she would go on to write 2002’s chart-topper “Beautiful” for Aguilera), the Material Girl turned down the song
Perry, now 56, toldRolling Stonein 2019 that she could sense that Pink’s career was at a turning point when they worked together, ultimately producing half the songs onMissundazstood, including the title track and “Dear Diary.”
“We were sitting one day and I said, ‘This album’s going to be huge,'” she recalled. “She laughed at me. But I was like, ‘It’s going to be a groundbreaking record and change things for you.’ She didn’t believe me. But we completely changed her format and it worked.”
“Don’t Let Me Get Me”: About That Britney Line…
Despite the success of 2000’sCan’t Take Me Home, “I was getting claustrophobic being in that box. You know, pop’s bad girl, the anti-Britney [Spears], the pink-haired freak and white black girl,” Pink toldABC Newsin 2003.
L.A. told me, “You’ll be a pop star,All you have to change is everything you are.“Tired of being compared to damn Britney SpearsShe’s so pretty, that just ain’t me.
And after 10 years of performing the track, Pink laughed as she told theLos Angeles Timesin 2012, “I wish I could burn that song and never sing it again.”
In 2021, when she looked back on media-spurred rivalries with Spears and Aguilera, Pink toldPEOPLE: “I think we navigated through it as good as a 20-year-old girl can. Now I think it’s totally different. Girls supporting girls is rad — I love to watch it.”
“Just Like a Pill”: Digging Deeper, Going Darker
Pink’s growing hard-rock edge was put on display in full force in “Just Like a Pill,” an exploration of her struggles with drug abuse as a young teenager.
Collaborating with producerDallas Austinwas simple, she told theL.A. Times: “[I thought about] when I used to be on drugs, I should write a song about it. When you’re young, you think your ideas are so clever. I loved the video, I . . . loved it. Still one of my favorites. I dyed my hair black. My hair has to match my heart — so dramatic.”
She toldRolling Stonein April 2002, “I’d like people who never thought they’d listen to a Pink album to be enlightened about how an artist can take control of her life, do what she wants, and f—in’ break the mold and be successful.”
More than any of Pink’s songs before it, “Just Like a Pill” showed that no topic was off-limits, and this unapologetic openness would come to define her career in years to come.
“I write about the stuff I’m insecure about and the pain I’m feeling and how messy it is to manage a relationship and how f—king hard it is to relate to another human being,” she toldVarietyin 2019.
Reid toldVH1in 2003, “The thing aboutMissundazstoodis that, lyrically, it’s a brilliant record. She wrote most, if not all, of the lyrics on the record.”
He continued, “I think she does prove a point here. You can be a pop star and have a brain, and have some creativity, and have some depth, and have some feelings, and not be afraid to bare those feelings.”
“Family Portrait”: A Brutal Breakthrough
Pink toldMaking the Videoin 2002, “To me, any truth is good whether it hurts or not” — and she put that belief to the test with “Family Portrait.”
The song started as a poem she wrote as a 9-year-old to process her parents’ divorce, she toldVH1’sStorytellersin 2012.
And she shared with ABC News in 2003 that “I went into the studio and I didn’t know what I was going to sing and 20 minutes later I was crying and didn’t really remember what I did.”
The next year, she admitted toEntertainment Weeklythat, when it came time to put out the single, “That was a song I was a little paranoid about. That’s why the video was the way it was. It was a little girl singing instead of me, because it’s too much for me. That little girl was me. That’s how I was when I was 7 years old. Except I wasn’t as cute.”
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Of course, the candor did come at a price: “My mom cried for four days when she heard it. I’ve seen my dad cry three times and that was one of them; that was awful,” she toldEWin 2012. “That was a song I wrote for me, and I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt them.”
Pink said onStorytellersthat “Family Portrait” ultimately became “one of the most important songs I ever wrote for myself and for my family.”
And though it created friction, she believes the honesty helped her family be more upfront about their problems — a practice she’s embraced in her own (sometimes messy) family life with husbandCarey Hart(whom she married in 2006) and their children,Willow and Jameson.
Pink remained close to her dad, Jim Moore — whom she called"my first rockstar”— until hisdeath from prostate cancerearlier this year.
Pink.Andrew Macpherson
The album was ultimately well-received, with a critic from theBaltimore Sunwriting, “OnMissundaztood, Pink gunned her engines in a totally different direction, recording rock-and blues-tinged pop. It’s as ifBeyoncé Knowlesripped off a mask and announced: ‘Guess what? I am actuallyGwen Stefani.'”
But it was an evolution she had to battle for: “[L.A. Reid and I] fought,” she revealed toRolling Stone Australiain 2017. “He was like, ‘You can’t abandon your fans.’ And I said, ‘I want to take them with me’, and he said, ‘Fine, I’m going to give you the opportunity to fail.'”
Missundaztoodwent on to receive two Grammy nominations, become the 10th highest-selling album of 2002 and ultimately sell 15 million copies worldwide.
source: people.com
