the best single of 2002, writing, "That's what pop music is all about, appealing to as many people as possible." Writing for The Guardian, Betty Clarke described the song's lyrics as "majestically filthy." Reviewing Aguilera's 2008 compilation album Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits, Nick Levine from Digital Spy called "Dirrty" the "sluttiest, sweatiest club banger in recent memory." Jancee Dunn called the release of "Dirrty" as the lead single "a shame" and opined that it misrepresented the rest of the album. Likewise, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic was disappointed towards the track's being released as the lead single and found Aguilera's vocal range in the song too narrow. Michael Paoletta from Billboard called the song "horribly derivative", while NMEs Jim Wirth said that "Dirrty" was "probably the pick of an inconsistent crop." Entertainment Weekly critic Seymour Craig gave it a D−, calling Aguilera's voice "desperate and shrill," and found it to be an unsuccessful attempt to gain street cred. "Dirrty" won the Best Single award at the 2003 Q Awards. The song also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 45th Grammy Awards, but lost to Santana's "The Game of Love" featuring Michelle Branch. In 2022, Billboard ranked "Dirrty" at number twenty-two on its list of the hundred greatest 2002 songs, calling it "a blueprint to reinvention in the pop game". Music video Development and content The music video for "Dirrty" was directed by David LaChapelle. It was filmed on September 8–9, 2002, in Los Angeles, at an abandoned newspaper print building. Aguilera took boxing lessons to prepare for the video, and more than 100 dancers auditioned. Aguilera wanted to make sure that she and LaChapelle had the same vision for the video, never wanted to be "glossy or pretty." A scene where Aguilera is lowered into a boxing ring in a cage and a dance routine in the ring were filmed on the first day. The following day, a foxy boxing scene, a table dancing part, a party scene with Redman's rapping his verse, and a shower scene were filmed. The video premiered on MTV on September 30, 2002, on Making the Video, and was described as "a post-apocalyptic orgy." The video opens with Aguilera gearing up and riding a motorcycle into a nightclub. Wearing a bikini and butt-baring chaps, she is lowered from a cage into a boxing ring and dances,