Songoftheday 4/21/23 - Never win first place I don't support the team, I can't take direction and my socks are never clean...

 

 

"Don't Let Me Get Me" - Pink

from the album Missundaztood (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 18

 

Today's song comes from Pink, whose second album Missundaztood had already spun off a top ten pop hit with the delightfully campy "Get This Party Started" at the close of 2001. Her follow-up single was the more focused "Don't Let Me Get Me", written by the singer with producer Dallas Austin. The songs lyrics have allusions to being an outcast and self-sabotage, but in the midst pulls no punches with one of the actual heads of her record label, L.A. Reid (though disguising it badly under the possible Los Angeles initials) for trying to mold her into the slutty/naive pop tart that her first album definitely was gearing. In fact, it even name-checks Britney Spears herself, queen of the tarts, a rarity in a mainstream pop record. It's brash, and it definitely cast Pink as trying to break free of that pigeonholing. But here's the thing; it feels contrived, like positioning yourself as the Anti-Britney was a marketing ploy just the same as what she's railing against. And including LA Reid on the music video aping the executive forcing her to change just seems to meta for its own damn good. Still, Pink is a much better singer then Britney, and she can pull off the pop-punk brand of lite-Blink182 style snarl here, and it resonated with her fans, who went along with the change in direction...

"Don't Let Me Get Me" became Pink's fifth top ten hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in May of 2002. On the radio, the song spent four weeks at #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, while getting to #16 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio panel and #30 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. The remixes of the track, done by house music master Maurice Joshua as well as rock producer John Shanks, helped the song rise to #31 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single topped the chart in New Zealand and Croatia, made the top ten in Denmark (#4), Sweden (#5), Ireland (#5), Hungary (#5), the United Kingdom (#6), Italy (#6), Belgium (#6 Flanders/#30 Wallonia), Romania (#6), Norway (#7), Australia (#8), Czech Republic (#8), Germany (#10), Austria (#10), and Switzerland (#10). 

Both Pink and the Missundaztood album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's Pink performing the song live with a band for a TV appearance promoting the song...

Next up, at an intimate live concert in 2002...

and lastly, at an arena show in London in 2007....

Song of the day will be back Monday with a newcomer and her piano traveling the distance.