Pink professed to be pretty uncomfortable with the getup she was asked to wear for the "Marmalade" video, saying that booty shorts are just not what she's about. That clip, though, along with the success of Can't Take Me Home — another admitted compromise of sorts — were what allowed Pink to stop compromising when it came time to record Missundaztood.

"I took a lot more control on this record," Pink said. "But I wouldn't have been able to do this record if it weren't for the last record. I wouldn't have known exactly what I wanted if I didn't know what I didn't want. So I had to go through that." [RealVideo]

Pink's first order of business for the new album was tracking down one of her idols, Linda Perry, whose group 4 Non Blondes is best remembered for its 1993 top 20 hit, "What's Up." 

"I was at a photo shoot and I found her number in my makeup artist's book and I stole it and called her," Pink said. "I left her like a 10-minute-long message saying, 'I love you, I got arrested for singing your album outside my window at 4:30 a.m. in the morning. My neighbors called the cops on me. So, you have to call me back — if I can find your number I can find out where you live!' " 

The two met up, and within a month they wrote 15 songs together. Among the tracks that made the album is "Lonely Girl," on which Perry also sings, acting in the song as the friend who asks the tough questions — "Do you even know who you are? ... Do you even know what you have?" she asks Pink. Pink has trouble answering each time, sounding fraught with uncertainty and doubt. 

"I was at her house, we were writing a song and I have ulcers and my stomach hurts sometimes and that happened or whatever so I left to go to the hospital," Pink said. "And she wrote that song about me because she thinks everything is internalized, and we create our problems for ourselves and all these things, so that's what happens. And I came back the next day and listened to it. And I was just like, 'Wow. I can't believe my idol for however many years just understands me that well to write a song about me.' It was a really strange experience." 

The rest of the album is also deeply personal. "I think people could understand me better from listening to the lyrics rather than listening to me talk," Pink said with a laugh. 

With spare piano, strings and snare beat in the background, "Family Portrait" paints the picture of a family in trouble. "'Family Portrait' is about my going through [my parents'] divorce ... that really affected me and I didn't realize it until I wrote that song how much it affected me. And I let my mom hear it and she cried for like four days," Pink said. "I did a lot of apologizing on this record, a lot of flowers to a lot of people." 

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler shows up on "Misery," a bluesy torch song with a guitar solo courtesy of Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora. Pink met Tyler at a radio show in New York. 

"I knew he was there so I just begged everybody, 'Please, just let me talk to him for five minutes. That's all I need.' And as soon as he came in, I just ran up to him. I just bolted. And I was like, 'Steven, I love you!' I'm such a dork. I said, 'We gotta sing a song together.' And we just clicked." 

"Respect," featuring Scratch, is a catchy girl power anthem with a chorus that says, "Hey ladies, yeah?/ Let 'em know it ain't easy/ R-E-S-P-E-C-T/ Let's come together." "18 Wheeler," co-authored by Dallas Austin, is another highlight, a melodic rock tune about how no one can keep Pink down.

And it looks like no one will keep Pink down. She's proud of the album, and raring to go on tour with her new band. She hopes to hit the road at the top of 2002.

Will her hair perhaps be pink again by then? "I want people to forget about my hair color," Pink said. "Just listen to the music and get up and dance and cry and feel better and don't feel better and be mad and be happy and all that stuff."