Critical Reception
The single received mostly positive reviews from the critics. Paul Matthew from UKMIX gave the song 4 out of 5 stars, saying that it is strong, catchy and different from anything she had released to date. Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen praised the song's stripped down nature, stating that 'Pink has never been afraid to show her true colors. The haunting, yet urgently importuning nature of the music matches and magnifies the meaning. The intensity of every earnest guitar strum and run echoes the sense of longing for familial harmony expressed in the chorus. Pink's voice on “Family Portrait” further reflects the urgency underlying the song.' Malaimport from Oppapers gave Pink the credit for the song in his article, 'Pink positioned the audience to understand and accept her representations of pain and frustration was clear through the uses language choices and imagery devices such as repetition and use of strong and forceful words.'
Read more about this topic: Family Portrait (song)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black textsespecially texts by black women. A working-class Jewish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.”
—Claire Oberon Garcia, African American scholar and educator. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B2 (July 27, 1994)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)