{$Pink}'s debut album was a promising collection of {\dance-pop}, easily lumped into the {\teen pop} boon of 2000 since she was young and sang over savvy, skittering club beats. Those comparisons irked -- hell, angered -- {$Pink}, and she was determined to prove she was real with her second album. So she called up her idol, {$Linda Perry} of {$4 Non Blondes} fame, to help her {\rock} and write; bared her soul; fought for some artistic control; brought in {$Steven Tyler}; and wound up with {^M!ssundaztood}, a title bound to never show up on Internet search engines. This all sounds like the script for a {@VH1} movie, but the wild thing is that {^M!ssundaztood} not only works, it works smashingly -- a bewildering amalgam of sounds and attitudes that shouldn't fit together, but defy all odds and do. This record bubbles over with imagination, as hooky {\pop} songs like the title track rub shoulders with glitzy dancefloor anthems like {&"Get the Party Started"} and sexy, swaggering {\arena rock} redux like {&"18 Wheeler"} before delving into weird confessionals like {&"Family Portrait,"} {&"Dear Diary,"} and {&"My Vietnam."} Forget that this isn't what anybody would have expected {$Pink} to do; it's hard to imagine anybody else that would have the idea and the inclination to blend late-'80s, {\metal}-spiked {\album rock} with modern {\hip-hop} and dance, then dress it up with dazzling modern {\pop} production, all the while not avoiding painful subjects (particularly her dysfunctional family) or melody. If that's not an artistic statement, I don't know what is, and the damn thing is there hasn't been a record in the mainstream this vibrant or this alive in a long, long time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide