On This Day in Pink History… 19th February 2002, Don’t Let Me Get Me was released

On This Day in Pink History… 19th February 2002, Don’t Let Me Get Me was released

Don’t Let Me Get Me was released as the second single from Pink’s second album, Missundaztood.

The song earned positive reports from music critics, but most gave sensitively mixed reviews upon her self-hating lyrical content. Robert Christgau in his consumer guide for MSN wrote that “Despite Pink’s audacious claim that she’s not as pretty as ‘damn Britney Spears,’ celebrity anxiety takes a backseat to a credible personal pain rooted in credible family travails, a pain held at bay by expression.” Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that “In Don’t Let Me Get Me, she turns self-loathing into a perverse kind of anthem.”

Jason Thompson of PopMatters wrote, “on the power rock of ‘Don’t Let Me Get Me,’ Pink herself tells it like it is and attempts to break free from the image making machine. ‘Tired of being compared / To damn Britney Spears / She’s so pretty / That just ain’t me.’ Well, that’s debatable in itself, but the fact that Pink takes it upon herself to call Spears out should be nothing short of revelatory. Spears certainly has nothing on Pink in the vocal department. Pink can actually sing. And damn well, mind you.”

Jim Alexander wrote a negative review, saying that the rest of Missundaztood is full of bad songs and that “‘Don’t Let Me Get Me’ and ‘Dear Diary’ see all pop joy expunged for acoustic seriousness, dreary unobtrusive beats and lyrics about relationship woes and record company badness.”