PINK - Seeing Red

A megastar is born

For her second album, the rockier and edgier Missundaztood, Pink teamed up with one of her musical heroes, ex-4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry, who had a hit in 1993 with “What’s Up.” The album is noticeably more personal than her debut offering. In “Don’t Let Me Get Me” she opines, “Everyday I fight a war against the mirror/I can’t take the person starin’ back at me/I’m a hazard to myself.” The album’s other hit singles include the anthemic “Get the Party Started” and “Just Like a Pill.” She also took a pop at the corporate music industry and recounts her battles with record label boss L.A. Reid. “L.A. told me you’ll be a pop star/All you have to change is everything you are.” At 19, this newcomer to the music industry had found her voice and taken creative control of her career, determined never to be a person that someone else wanted her to be. Music executives wondered about the reaction that would greet their loose cannon, but they needn’t have nervously chomped on so many fingernails. The album sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and she was well on her way to mega stardom.

Strong political views

Pink is openly political, believing that celebrities can use their exalted positions in powerful ways, if they choose to. Although she gets frustrated that sometimes her views are sensationalized by the tabloid press, she is irritated that the public can sometimes patronize opinionated pop stars, viewing them merely as pampered celebrities jumping onto fashionable causes. But just like Angelina Jolie or Bono, she means what she says when she wants to bring attention to an issue. Just because she’s a singer doesn’t mean that her head is removed from the real world. The Grammy Award-winning, platinum-selling superstar has never shied away from speaking her mind, and she wants to bring attention to things she feels need to be said and talked about. She is a force to be reckoned with.

Dear Mr. President

On her fourth studio album, I’m Not Dead, she denounced the U.S. government’s
involvement in Iraq on a track called “Dear Mr. President.” She has often said that it is one of the most important songs she has ever written, and it includes the lines, “How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?/How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?/How do you walk with your head held high?/Can you even look me in the eye/And tell me why?” Although concerned about making her feelings public on such a sensitive issue—because she understood that not everyone would agree with her point of view—she couldn’t help herself, believing that if a cause is worthy enough she must make her voice heard. Perhaps it is something she inherited from her politically active father, who raised his daughter to stand up for herself, advising her “to thine own self be true.”

“Dear Mr. President” was also particularly brave in light of the Dixie Chicks controversy of 2003. The county music group had received death threats and hate mail, and their concerts were boycotted when they were accused of being unpatriotic after lead vocalist Natalie Maines said on the eve of the war, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”