60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Complicated”—Avril Lavigne

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Rob looks back at the music career of pop star Avril Lavigne while celebrating her smash hit “Complicated.” Along the way, Rob dives deep into the idea of the anti-Britney Spears and much more! Later, he is joined by Marissa Moss to discuss Avril Lavigne’s potential influences, debating what song is her best, and more. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Marissa Moss Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Solic, and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bansplaine, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Mad Chester. I'm talking baggy. I'm talking Shugays. I'm talking Brit Popmate.

So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bansplaine on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, friends, a few quick announcements. We will be taking off just the next two weeks for the holidays, but we will return on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025, and go from there. Secondly, to our friends in Los Angeles, I'm both very delighted and very sorry to inform you that the 60 Songs Bansplane live show at the Lodge Room in January has sold out. Thanks to everyone who got tickets, and for those who did not get tickets,

I'll let you know if more tickets are suddenly available or if the venue physically triples in size or anything of that sort. Okay, thank you. Sorry. Okay. Talk soon. The single greatest song released in the first decade of the 21st century

is everywhere by Michelle Branch. Thank you in advance for saying that you agree with me. Majestic. If I ever pass out, in front of you or have a heart attack or a stroke or something in lieu of smelling salts or a defibrillator or one of those giant pulp fiction syringes. Just get a giant boombox and point it directly at my face and play the chorus to everywhere by Michelle Branch.

You don't have a boombox, obviously. You can just play it on your phone. It's fine. Just crank it all the way up. What is it precisely, musically, about the chorus to everywhere by Michelle Brancel branch. It's the vocal harmonies, right? The diverging michelels, the more human-sounding lead Michelle, joyously intertwined with the more computer-sounding harmonizing Michelle's. Something about the euphoric, melodic, skywriting tapestry of exquisitely layered digital and

IRL Michelle's really, really, really, really, really, really does it for me. This chorus sounds like 50,000 love-lorn teenagers, doodling the names of their crushes in flowery cursive on their trapper keepers simultaneously. Best song of the first decade of the 21st century, the statement directly contradicts previous, very recent statements I've made in this venue, but no matter. I contain multitudes. My various hyperbolic contradictory statements joyously intertwine and harmonize with one another. Yeah, if I am unconscious and you see, stick your phone in my face and play everywhere by Michelle Branch at unreasonable volume, I will regain consciousness. I will take a gasping, elated breath. I will fully recover. I will live.

I will thrive. Do you know how I determined scientifically that everywhere is the best? It's a personal issue. Which song is the best? It's different for everyone. So ask yourself this one question. If you're in your car listening to the radio, what song on? on the radio will cause you to floor it? What song will compel you to immediately drive 90 miles an hour, even if you are driving in the Home Depot parking lot? Look out! The Android chorus of ecstatic Michelle's blending rhapsodically on the phrase,

When I Catch My Breath, it's you, I breathe, as dudes holding cordless drills and chainsaws and artificial Christmas trees and wet drive vacuum cleaners and whatnot, dive out of the path of my minivan as I drive 90 miles an hour in the Home Depot parking lot. And I got the windows down, right? And everywhere is blasting an unreasonable volume.

And all those dudes, dudes is a gender neutral term. But okay, all the Home Depot customers who dove out of the path of my minivan applaud as they lay sprawled out on the concrete because they get it. they understand. They too respect the awesome, slightly digital yet fully carnal power of everywhere by Michelle Branch. Michelle Branch says she wrote the song everywhere in her bedroom in her hometown of Sedona, Arizona when she was 15 years old. With her parents' blessing, she started splitting her time between Sedona and Los Angeles, trying to get a record deal, trying to make it as a singer, a songwriter, a pop star. Backstage at a Lisa Loeb.

show, fantastic. Michelle meets a guy named Steve Poltz, a singer-songwriter and rambunctious Canadian-American rock star type who collaborated extensively with Jewel. And as a gift, Steve gives Michelle this bracelet, a bracelet allegedly handmade by Jewel herself. And Steve tells Michelle, when this bracelet breaks, you'll be famous. That's a weird line, Steve, if we're being honest. and yeah, Michelle's like, okay, mister. That's verbatim what Michelle says that she said, okay, mister. And in the year 2000, Michelle self-releases an album called Broken Braclet.

And then the bracelet breaks, and that day she gets signed to Maverick Records. Part of Warner Music Group and her major label debut album called The Spirit Room comes out in 2001 and features the single greatest song released in the first decade of the 21st century. You see me. Everywhere is Michelle Branch's debut single and it blows the hell up, much to her surprise and perhaps her slightly bemused chagrin. In 2017, Michelle tells Billboard magazine, quote, I definitely think I've written better choruses, but I feel like that's the one that I'll forever be identified with.

End quote, she's got a theory as to what happened here. She says, quote, I feel like maybe when everywhere came out in 2001, the music my peers were making was all kind of team. pop, the backstreet boys and in sync stuff that was going on. The fact that it sounded different was maybe what drew people in initially, end quote. Right, right, 2001, when the pop landscape is ruled by like 12 people and 10 of those people are the five dudes apiece in the backstreet boys and in sync. Teen pop's got TRL. It's got all of MTV in a chokehold. Teen pop's got the charts in a chokehold. The InSync album No Strings Attached, released in March 2000, famously sells 2.4 million copies in America in its first week, a first week sales record that will stand for 15 years

until Adele breaks it. Teen Pop's got America in a chokehold, despite the fact that this music is often written and produced by a bunch of mysterious, reclusive Swedish dudes. And so Michelle Branch, with her guitar and her straightforward song, she wrote, in her teenage bedroom in her sound more evocative of Lisa Loeb and Jewel and Cheryl Crow and whatnot. Michelle provides something akin to teen pop counter programming. She's got bigger other hits, but at the moment, I'm quite enamored with another jam on the spirit room called I'd rather be in love. The delirious whoosh of the way Michelle delivers the words, because when there's you, I feel whole. Everyone jump in the minivan. We're going back to Home Depot.

I'm all out of face. This is how I feel. Her sound is also evocative of torn by Natalie and Brulia. Splendid. I got one more delirious Michelle Branch, whoosh for you. In 2002, when smooth is finally cooled off,

and Carlos Santana needs another hot one, who do you think he calls? It's the third time she sings, it's all in the game of love. Here, the first two times are rad, but the third one, the sauce Michelle puts on the word,

all. They ain't got this kind of sauce in Sweden. Michelle's second full-length major label solo album called Hotel Paper comes out in 2003. Her third full-length major label solo album called Hopeless Romantic comes out in 2017. It takes 14 years. It takes almost as long as Guns and Roses took to make Chinese democracy. Some stuff happens to Michelle Branch. Not catastrophic personal stuff. Necessarily, we're talking more maddening record company bullshit type stuff. Lots of Warner Brothers regime changes.

Lots of meddling executives with knuckleheaded ideas about who she should sound like. Lots of scrapped release dates. She does some cool stuff in the meantime. Michelle and the singer Jessica Harp form a country pop duo called The Records, who put out their first and only album in 2006. but it is probably not a coincidence that they call this album Stand Still Look Pretty I'm slow, I wish you'd take a walk in my shoes for a start

This is the title track And yeah, maybe this is a brokenhearted personal romantic plea But yeah, probably not I suspect this one goes out to all the new label presidents All the knucklehead meddlers And perhaps even all the other knuckleheads on message boards wondering why your new album's taking so long to come out. You might think it's easy be.

You just don't still look pretty. Michelle Branch, in fact, has not one but two shelved, full-length albums. The first one called Everything Comes and Goes is reduced to a six-song EP that comes out in 2010. And the second album called West Coast Time is slated for 2011 but never comes out at all. And in 2017, the year hopeless romantic finally comes out, Elle magazine does a big feature on her with the headline, What Happened to Michelle Branch? And Michelle summarizes what happened to her like this.

Quote, My whole life I've been surrounded by middle-aged men telling me what to do because they know exactly what it's like to be a young woman. End quote. Pink, put it another way. All you have to change is everything you are. Here we have Alicia Beth Moore, a native of Doylestown, Pennsylvania,

better known to the world as the singer and songwriter, an Ariel Silk's aficionado, and yes, pop star, known as Pink. Pink is officially styled with an exclamation point instead of an I, so P, exclamation point, NK. Pink's first solo album called Can't Take Me Home comes out in 2000. It's basically an old.

R&B record, a lot of TLC and Timberland and Brandy and Monica, slickness and swagger, and Pink can sing that stuff, but that doesn't mean Pink wants to sing that stuff, but her label boss, an executive producer, Big Shot Music Biz guy L.A. Reed, wanted her to sing that stuff, and so there you go. L.A. told me, you'll be a pop star. All you have to change is everything you are. This song is called Don't Let Me Get Me. And it appears on Pink's second album, released in 2001. and called Misunderstood. That's M-I-S-U-N-D-A-Z-T-O-O-D. Miss Unda-Z-T-O-D.

This album is way more her. It's way more of a rock thing, in part because Linda Perry, she of 90s, all rock stars, four non-blonds, Linda Perry is on board as a songwriter and producer. Misunderstood is maybe also

way more of a punk thing, depending on how you feel about pop stars using the word punk. Because, indeed, L.A. reads out of the picture now, and Pink's doing way more of what she wants to do. And not coincidentally, this is when she actually becomes a pop star. This is when she gets the party started. But, ah, wait, this verse, the second verse of Don't Let Me Get Me Ain't Over yet. I believe Pink is about to spell out for us the single biggest problem facing a young early 2000s female pop star surrounded by middle-aged men.

She just says it. Right there in the song, Pink just says the name. She evokes the name. Britney Spears. Damn Britney Spears. That's pretty punk rock if you ask me. Years long, tiresome vitriolic rap feuds have been ignited by less. But Pink does not object to Britney Spears herself.

Pink objects to being lumped in with Britney Spears by knucklehead label execs. and knucklehead critics and knucklehead message board denizens alike. But too bad. Everyone is being compared to damn Britney Spears now. In the music industry and in the media, in the early 2000s, if you are a female pop star, you fall into one of three categories. Category one, you are literally Britney Spears.

Excellent job. Literally Britney Spears. You are running shit. Your first album, 1999's Baby One More Time. Dot, dot, dot, baby one more time. Sells 14 million copies in America. Your second album, 2000's, Oops, I Did It Again.

Oops, Exclamation Point, dot, dot, dot, space, I did it again. sells 10 million. And your third album, 2001's Brittany, sells, okay, only around five million, but only around five million. Come on now. And at least you got to cover Joan Jets, I Love Rock and Roll. Okay, but what if you're a female pop star and you're not Britney Spears? Hmm.

Perhaps the L.A. Reads of the world will decide that you're in category number two. Women in direct competition with Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera has herself a pretty stupendous 2002 as well. Christina's fourth album is called Stripped and features the rad monster power ballad beautiful. Written and produced by, oh, look at that, Linda Perry. From the album title on down, and on Beautiful especially, Stripped is designed to explode unrealistic beauty standards, while likewise expanding societal notions of what constitutes pop music.

But this song is also a bop. Yes? Yes. Excellent job, Linda Perry. Look, early 2000s, you got Christina Aguilera, you got Mandy Moore, you got Jessica Simpson, you got Gwen Stefani about to go solo. You got Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas eventually going solo.

You got everyone from Hillary Duff to Lindsay Lohan to Ashley Simpson on deck. And some of these pop stars are pop stars in the classic sense. The glitz, the bombast, the excess, perhaps the choreography, perhaps the lip syncing, perhaps the de-emphasis on rock and roll unless you are singing about how much you love rock and roll. But if you like extra love rock and roll, if your emphasis is more on songwriting, more on playing a guitar, or perhaps a piano. If you are a female pop star trying to sidestep

the explicit teen pop machine, then the music industry and the media will be delighted to drop you into category number three, the anti-Britney. Here we have a 2002

CBS News article with the headline the anti-Britneys. And this article begins, quote, since Britney Spears arrived on the music scene three years ago, pop music has molded its teen queens, according to the three bees, blondeness, beauty, and boostiers. But a new crop of female singer-songwriters is challenging the notion that you have to bear your navel and cavort in tight clothes to be sexy and

successful in pop music. End quote. And then it some people. And one of those people is Vanessa Carlton, whose 2002 breakout hit is entitled A Thousand Miles. Vanessa Carlton, she got the video where she's singing and playing piano on a moving flatbed truck. She's playing piano on the highway with the biker gang riding behind her. I believe there's an owl perched on the piano at one point. There is no stunt in any Mission Impossible movie, more frightening and more impressive to me than Vanessa Carlton singing and playing piano whilst tooting down the highway with a bunch of dudes on motorcycles and an owl. And in 2002, there's a blunt and quite reductive term for this sort of music and this sort of musician,

the anti-Britney. In this CBS news article, an MTV executive named Tom Calderon says that the likes of Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton have, quote, given the audience an opportunity to realize that Not every pop star has to show their belly button. Not every pop star has to be a waif, and pop stars can pick up instruments. End quote. Sometimes, as Pink found out, if you want to be a pop star, all the music business big shots will try to make you change everything you are. And sometimes they make you a pop star by making a suspiciously big deal out of how you refuse to change everything you are. And if you get to be too huge, a pop star, the music.

Music biz will manufacture a whole bunch of new pop stars explicitly defined as the anti-you. You are the hero until you get big enough to be redefined as the villain. According to this article, there are three anti-Britneys. There's Michelle Branch, and there's Vanessa Carlton, and there's her. She is from a small town in Ontario, Canada. She turns 18 in 2002. She will sell 7 million copies of her 2000. to debut album in America alone and 16 million copies total worldwide.

She will help redefine pop music and maybe possibly punk music. And for her trouble, as a result of her overwhelming blockbuster success, she too will be incessantly compared to and contrasted with Britney Spears by virtually everyone. This is how the pop music industrial complex works. She will appear on the cover of Rolling Stone with the cover. line on the hunt with the Britney Slayer. This is how the media works. There is Brittany and there is the anti-Britney.

She is a girl and she is a girl. Can I make it any more obvious? My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 11th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000. It's still funny. And this week we are discussing complicated by Avrilavine. from her 2002 debut album

Let Go Can I please play you just the first seven seconds of the complicated video? This is how Avro Levine enters the complicated video. What up, boys? So what do you guys want to do today?

Dude, you want to crush them all? Nice. Okay. What's up, boys? Nice. Yes, she's on a skateboard. I love marketing. I love Popstar marketing.

of high-stakes image calibration. It feels like everyone called Averlovene the anti-Britney. Even Weird Al Yankovic called Averill the anti-Britney. Now, you've been called the anti-Britney. Do you think you're better than Britney Spears? I'm no better than anyone else, and no one else is any better than me. Except for Britney Spears, right? I mean, she's hot.

This is Weird Al interviewing Avril Levine for his MTV show Al TV in 2003. And yes, I can cram Weird Al Yankovic in any topic of conversation. Thank you for noticing. And also, this is a Weird Al spoof interview, right, where Averal's answers are clearly not in response to Al's questions to heighten the awkwardness and weirdness and owleness. Nonetheless, Britney Spears isn't better than anyone else. Oh, really? even Hitler?

I found this clip at one in the morning, and I laughed so hard. I just assumed I woke up everyone in my house. I had forgotten that Weird Al did a parody, a full parody of Avrilavines complicated. And listening to it again now, I have no idea how I managed to forget he did this. You better brace yourself. Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated? because right now I'll get my boughs evacuated Wow

Oh wow I don't know about you but I need a second to compose myself Hold on Okay, we're back That was perhaps not our most dignified ad break I do apologize to whatever product or service I just inadvertently associated With a weird Al Yankovic song

A Complicated song From his 2003 album Poodle Hat whatever product or service was just advertised, right now you get 15% off with the code constipated. That's not true. Of course, I'm just kidding. They'll probably make me cut that. That's fine. That makes sense.

Anyone want to watch a movie? I feel like watching a movie. Well, he looks at me with those innocent eyes and says it looks like you're wearing some kind of disguise because your hair sticks up. Your shoes are untie. I feel like watching the 2001 cult classics satirical masterpiece Josie and the Pussycats, starring Rachel Lee, Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Reid as the titular young, spunky, delightful, ultimately anti-corporate pop punk band. Though this movie wisely sidesteps all tiresome elitist arguments about pop versus team pop versus punk versus pop punk and the perceived authenticity of those genres, etc.

I do very much enjoy du jour, the fictional boy band in this movie named du jour. Du jour means friendship. Dejure means family. Dejure means seatbelts. Dejure means crash positions. No, instead, Josie and the Pussycats is a delightful excoriation of capitalism and shameless product placement and subliminal advertising and all other craven teenager-based marketing schemes.

The villains, played by Parker Posey, aka. Lisping Lisa and Alan Cumming, aka White Ass Wally, they work for a sinister record label called simply Mega Records. And at one point, Parker Posey reveals the subliminal messaging Mega Records has inserted into all pop music

and it's Mr. Movie Phone going conform! Free will is overrated. Jump on the bandwagon. There is no such place as Area 51. Subversive hijinks ensue. Spoiler alert, the human spirit triumphs over capitalism. What a picture.

The topped letterbox review of this movie just says, RIP Carl Marx, you would have loved Josie and the Pussycats, parentheses 2001. End quote. Hard agree. A specter is haunting Europe. The specter of the warped tour. This song is called Pretend to Be Nice.

It was written by Godtier songwriter Adam Schlesinger, he of the Godtier power pop band Fountains of Wayne. Pretend to be nice in a bunch of the other Josie and the Pussycat songs are sung by Kay Hanley. She of the Rad alt rock band Letters to Cleo. There is tremendous pedigree behind this song. But this is not the sort of music that requires pedigree. What this sort of music requires is raw energy, enthusiasm, buoyancy, attitude, and the sort of radiant charisma that cannot be faked and that none of the haters can credibly denounce as fake.

Whether it's teen pop or pop punk or whatever, when it comes to pop stars, you got the goods or you don't. You are authentic or you ain't. I don't mean being authentic to some corporate mandated or critically agreed upon platonic ideal of authenticity. I mean authentic in the sense that you appear to be authentic to yourself. Nobody is better than anybody else except Hitler. It's acting like somebody else that gets me frustrated. Life's like this. You fall and you crawl.

and you break and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty and promise me I'm never going to find you fake it. That's what I'm saying. Let the message board clowns and magazine headline writers argue about the rest of it. I bring up Josie and the Pussycats now

because I think the song pretend to be nice would have manifested Averillivine if Averillivine had not already been born but also because the thesis, the moral, the not at all subliminal message of Josie and the Pussycats is that the kids know they're being manipulated. The kids know

that on some molecular level they love Doritos and Gatorade and boy bands because Mega Records told them to. The kids know that Mega Records sculpts and prunes and manipulates and cynically positions

and ruthlessly controls their pop stars to within an inch of their non-existent private lives. And the anti-Britney can be every bit as cynically manipulated and ruthlessly controlled as the Britneys, or at least Mega Records tries to control them. If you had completely had your way with how to market, have a position this young girl, what would we be seeing today?

Here we have famous journalist Jane Pauley, doing a piece in 2003 for NBC's Dateline, and she is interviewing superpowered record executive L.A. Reid. Pink's old friend of L.A. told me you'll be a pop star. All you have to change is everything you are, fame. He's moved on. Now, L.A. is discussing his initial, and thankfully his ultimately foiled plans to mold another young pop star. I probably would have had her prettied up and, you know,

maybe the clothes that have been a little tighter, a little more revealing, and, you know, that's why these people get paid the big bucks L.A. Reed is about to say something truly extraordinary, though. You better brace yourself for this also. I'm excited for you to hear this. A little more sparkles going on, a little more bling, bling telling you, I would have messed it all up. Being normal is what's hot today. And the simple beat, the simple melody, the catchy hook line, everything is simple. Less is more. Being normal is what's hot today. Incredible. You know what was hot in 2003?

Being normal. That's what? As an exceedingly normal person, that was certainly my experience of 2003, that I suddenly radiated a palpable hotness. All right, enough of this shit. He's talking about Avrilavine. And Avrilavine has the tremendously good sense

to ignore him entirely. and that's what immediately made her a fantastic pop star. I'm going to stop right there. Listen, not to overdose on hyperbole, but like name a more iconic opening line for a pop song than he was a boy, she was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious? Unbelievable.

The whole ethos of 85% of pop music has just been distilled into 16 words. One of the great opening lines in cultural history. The times were the best, the times were the worst. Can I make it any more obvious? The simple beat. The simple melody, the catchy hook line. This song is called Skater Boy,

which is officially spelled S-K-Numeral-8-E-R-spaced B-O-I, and that is the most complicated thing about it. I should let her sing the whole opening verse. All of this is tremendously important. The time. Timelessness of obvious teenage attraction paired with the timelessness of teenagers being siloed into arbitrary categories and pitted against each other despite their obvious attractions. Skater Boy is elemental. Man, this is a foundational document of the pettiness and clickishness of youth.

The pettiness and clickishness that can often disrupt the inherent blossoming romance and relentless horniness of youth. this is a rich text. Just the way Avrilavine sings the words punk and ballet is a rich text. The audible sneer, the slightly upturned lip. When Avrilavine sings the words, they had a problem with his baggy clothes. Avrilavilleavine was born on September 27th, 1984 in Belleville, Ontario. Many years later, when she will infamously mispronounce David Bowie's name during a Grammy's conference, she calls him David Bowie.

Avra will vehemently defend herself in Rolling Stone by saying, quote, what's the big deal? I was born in 1984. Why would I know who he is? End quote. Oof. What more can I say indeed when she is five years old. Her family moves to the nearby small town of Napani, Ontario? Yes, Avrilavillevine is the pride, the joy, the audible sneer of Canada.

in 2024, she was honored. She was appointed to the order of Canada, which is basically where Canada knights you, I think. She grew up wanting to be a huge famous star, but far more importantly, she grew up knowing she'd be a huge famous star, jumping on the bed and pretending to perform

for a huge screaming crowd, that sort of thing. Her parents are to Valley Christian, Averill sang in church, and pop-wise she started out listening to and singing songs by country divas of the Shania Twain, and Faith Hill variety. But per Rolling Stone,

her parents wouldn't let her sing the Deanna Carter song, Strawberry Wine, because it had wine in the title. Averill starts playing guitar. According to the Best Damn Avrilavine podcast, the first chord Aver Levine learns on guitar is G. An excellent chord. A great place to start.

Avril starts writing her own songs, and also she starts recording herself singing karaoke versions of famous songs in her parents' basement. A songwriter and producer named Peter Zizzo sees one of these tapes, and he tells Rolling Stone, quote, she was singing without any affectation. She was like 14 and wearing these fuzzy bunny slippers, and she had a bandana around her head. I called back and said, get her to New York, end quote. Averill moves to Manhattan to the West Village with her older brother, and she starts trying to make it as a singer and songwriter.

She crosses paths with L.A. Reed. She signs to Arista Records, and the battle to mold Avrilavine begins. Talking to Jane Polly on NBC, Avril says, quote, Everyone thought I was going to be like a Faith Hill, Shanaya Twain. And I'd be like, uh, no, I want a rock. And verily, Avrilavine rocks. and Avril Avrilavine can cram a surprising number of words into the choruses of her more rocking songs but hold on it's not quite that simple Skater Boy for all its verb is perhaps not quite her definition

of rocking Avro Levine's debut album released on June 4th, 2002 is called Let Go and okay look in a less enlightened era of this podcast so like two, three weeks ago I would have very rudely declared that Let Go by Avrilavine has three good songs and ten not good songs, which is to say that all the other songs are kind of, but that's rude. That is crazy rude. Honestly, can't I just pretend to be nice? Can't I just actually be nice? Sure, I can. There's a profound musical and spiritual and strategic divide between the three giant hit songs on Let Go.

and all the other songs. For one thing, at least some of the other songs are how Avril Levine herself wants to hear herself. This is the first song and the loudest song, the hardest song, the hardest rocking song, On Let Go. It is called Losing Grip. Every vowel Avrilavine sings is sharpened to a lethal point. And her voice has an equally lethal flexibility. Avril can cram a huge number of words, A whole novel's worth of exposition and characterization and plot into Skater Boy. Or she can luxuriate lethally on just the words, really just the vowels in the words, why and care. Or she can do both simultaneously.

She can be rapid fire lethal and then slow motion lethal on just the word out. There's a ton of Alanis Morissette here. speaking of being the pride and joy and audible sneer of Canada, Averill and Alanis have a similarly ferocious approach to dealing with both vowels and duplicitous men. This song's called Unwanted. And it's the other very loud and very hard rocking song on Let Go. And this is way more what Avril Levine means when she says she wants to rock.

But her handlers aren't so sure. Talking to Rolling Stone, Avril says, quote, Arista was drop dead shit afraid that I would come out with a whole album that sounded like unwanted and losing grip, end quote. And what Arista Records does when, apparently, they are drop dead shit afraid, is they hook Avril up with a songwriting team called The Matrix, a Los Angeles based trio of writers and producers, Lauren Christie, Scott Spock, and Graham Edwards. And The Matrix helps Avril Levine write five songs, including the three giant hit songs. Okay, okay, including the three good songs on the Let Go album.

Skater Boy is one, and this is another. Chill out what she yelling for. Lay back. It's all been done before. And if you could only let it be, you would see. Complicated has an awful lot of words as well, a lot of character development, but more importantly, there's a melodic consistency, a mathematical elegance to complicated. All great pop songs thrive on repetition, but something about the repetition here, the very pleasing symmetry of the phrasing here. There is somehow both a great complexity and a great simplicity, driving complicated. The same melodic phrase three times. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Averill stun a little bit.

And then sing all that again. I fuck that up. It's too bad. The mysterious reclusive Swedish dudes who've started running pop music in the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears era, those dudes are big on melodic math, right? Every syllable just so, even if those syllables do not necessarily form words that form coherent phrases that form coherent pop song sentiments. I never want to hear you say that I want it that way is not very coherent.

Hit me, baby, one more time is a little more coherent and like 10,000 times more troubling. Yes? And there is something of that melodic math at work on complicated, right? The pre-chorus, you get a different melodic phrase, rapid fire six times. Do do do do do do do do do. Do do do do do do do. It's blunt force repetition, but it's never boring. And even more impressively, it's never quite what you expect. This is a song about conformity. This is a song in which Avrilavine berates someone close to her for conforming, for acting like someone else, for

wearing preppy clothes, for trying to be cool, for not relaxing, for playing an ill-fitting role, for being inauthentic to his or herself. And she berates this person within a rigid and coherent musical structure. But the tension and the greatness of complicated is listening to Avrilaville Teen Prodigy songwriter as she learns to utilize that melodic math and ride that wave, but there's always something in her voice yearning to break free of it. She is going to assert her personality whether the drop dead shit-afraid suits at Arista Records like it or not. She is perhaps going to assert her personality on the words,

laugh out and strike your pose. And then there's the other tension, the backstage tension, the mega records type tension, the tension between Avrilavine and the Matrix about who wrote what. Media-wise, when you read big Avrilavillevine interviews and features in the early 2000s, there are two major themes. Number one, she is incessantly referred to as the anti-Britney. And music business, big shots say at least medium weird things about Avro and what she portends for pop music. And a 2002 entertainment weekly cover story headlined Avril Levine, the anti-Britney, a record programmer named Tom Pullman, who works for Z-100 in New York City. Tom declares that

Averill is, quote, the defining artist of this face. of pop music because, quote, you could take every aspect of the Britney persona and look for the polar opposite in Avril. Whereas Britney was more glamour and less reality-based, Avril is much more the regular kid. For boys, she seems more attainable. Girls can see themselves living more like her, dressing the same, being attracted to the same boys. End quote, sure. Being normal is what's hot today. Sure, but the second major theme of Avril Levine's early press is, does she write her own songs? Or what percentage of her own songs does she write exactly?

There are several arduous paragraphs in Averill's 2003 Rolling Stone Britney Slayer cover story devoted to who wrote what part of Complicated. There is a medium-friendly disagreement. Averill says, quote, When I wrote Complicated, I was feeling what this song talks about. about that there are tons of people in the world who are fake, who are two-faced, end quote. Averill has asked how long it took her to write complicated and she says, quote, maybe two hours. Songwriting is like that for me. She snaps her fingers. Someone can say, go write a song and I can do it.

I can write a song in a day, end quote. Whereas the Matrix in Rolling Stone assert that they wrote most of these three songs themselves. Lauren Christie, one-third of the Matrix, remembers it like this. Quote, with those songs, we conceive the ideas on guitar and piano. Aver would come in and sing a few melodies,

change a word here or there. She came up with a couple of things and complicated. Like, instead of take off your stupid clothes, she wanted it to say preppy clothes. End quote. Now, is this argument, this medium, crabby,

percentage-based songwriting feud, is any of this terribly interesting or relevant or important? Maybe not. This matters a whole lot less than pop music now, whether our favorite pop stars write their own songs, etc. But it is unfortunately relevant to Avrilavine in 2003 that all this shit mattered a whole lot more in 2003. As we've seen with Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton,

an anti-Britney is defined by the fact that she plays her own instruments and writes her own songs. But what is far more relevant for our purposes is that Avril Levine, even in this moment, acknowledges the importance of these three Matrix songs, but it's even more important to her that she jettisoned the Matrix Sound ASAP. In Rolling Stone, Avril says, quote, I don't feel like complicated represents me and my ability to write. But without complicated, I bet you anything I wouldn't have even sold a million records. The songs I did with the Matrix, Yeah, they were good for my first record, but I don't want to be that pop anymore, end quote. And that's fine. That's great. That's necessary. But there is the small matter of the third truly great song Avrilavine wrote with The Matrix.

More accurately, the let go album has two good songs and one utterly stupendous song. Complicated is great. Skater boy is delightful, but the third song is called I'm. with you and I'm with you kicks fucking ass early Avrilavine press also routinely devotes multiple arduous paragraphs to the question of how

punk rock she is or isn't but who gives a hoot what do we make of the fact that this slow dance power ballad waltz somehow kicks more ass than the whole rest of her debut album combined here too the vowels are lethal but now they are emotionally, sentimentally lethal, the elongated vowels of damn cold night. Then just for a split second, she speeds up and crams a few more syllables in trying to figure out this life. I saw

Avrilavine live in January 2003 at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Columbus, Ohio, during her first national tour, which was literally named the Try to Shut Me Up tour. Then I remember three things about this show very clearly. Number one, the venue had a balcony, right? A whole second tier of seats. And at one point Averill pointed at the balcony and shouted, I just realized there's a whole bunch of people up there. And I thought that was extremely funny. Number two, there was a guy behind me, a dad with his two young daughters. And the dad and I got talking. And the dad explained to me that he really liked Avril Levine. And he really liked these other new young pop stars like Michelle Branch because they play their own instruments and write their own songs

and just generally seem like way better role models than that damn Britney Spears. That actually happened. And I remember thinking, man, the anti-Britney marketing campaign is really working. But then I got distracted by the third thing, which is when Avril played, I'm with you, and it kicked even more ass than I'd anticipated. Matter of fact, let's jump right to the dramatic conclusion. If it matters a great deal to you that Averill-Levin is not lip-sinking, then this will be the moment when you're most impressed by how much not lip-sinking she's doing. The punk-adjacent sneer of the first, I'm here. And then, yes, the ecstatic, delirious whoosh with which Averill sings the words, I'm with you twice. This does not rock in the classic sense, no, but it is her doing 90 miles an hour

in the Home Depot parking lot moment. I should note that Avro Levine constantly hectored by everyone from Weird Al to Jane Polly about the whole anti-Britney thing. Avro was consistently dismissive of the whole anti-Britney thing. She told Weird Al in that weird semi-fake interview that nobody's better than anybody else. She told Jane Pauley, quote, I'm not made up and I'm not being told what to say and how to act. So they have to call me the anti-Britney, which I'm not. I think that's very rude and very mean. I think it's a dumb game.

It's just the media putting up those labels, end quote. Averill said a few medium rude things about Brittany over the years, but in 2002, talking to Entertainment Weekly, she also said, quote, I don't like that term, the anti-Britney. It's stupid. I don't believe in that. She's a human being. God, leave her alone.

End quote. Yeah. Leave Brittany alone. You heard it here first. Awfully prescient of Averill, I think. I should also note that Averill Levine's best album is her third album, which came out in 2007 and is called The Best Damn Thing and starts like this. This song is called Girlfriend, and it too kicks significant amounts of ass despite being co-written and co-produced by Dr. Luke. And yeah, huh, fascinating.

This song is somehow both more punk rock. and more teen pop than anything Avril Levine has done before or since. She contains multitudes. Pop contains multitudes. So does punk. So do teenagers. And those very few teenage pop stars who somehow credibly seem like they're going to be teenagers forever. In Rolling Stone in 2003, Avril says, quote,

The main thing is you got to work with the artist. A lot of people didn't want to listen to me. but I spoke up until they did. And I can always say, screw you guys if you're not going to work with me. If they're not going to listen to me, I'm not going to do things. Try and make me.

I'm not going to. End quote. Girlfriend is the second best song she ever did, or maybe the third best after hot. All as I know is, the sound of Avrilavine ignoring all the middle-aged men who've been telling her what to do her whole career is some of the sweetest music you will ever hear.

Our guest today, we are delighted to welcome back Marissa Moss, critic and author of the book Her Country, How the Women of Country Music, Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be. Her next book out in 2026 will be called, I've been a bad, bad girl growing up and out of the 90s with the women whose music changed our lives forever. Marissa, great to see you again.

Good to be back. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So your next. book is all about 90s female rock stars. And Averill Levine, obviously in some ways is like 2002 incarnate. But I've always also heard her as having, you know, a direct connection to Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani and the Donnas, maybe even a little Elastika or L7. Like, is there more 90s in Avril than we want to admit? Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, I was, so I was around, I think, 20 when her first album came out when Leco came out. And I kind of feel like Avril at that point was like, you know, 90s rock, like maybe like youth reader edition.

Like I immediately saw that connection to the 90s. I don't know if you were, you know, younger and coming to her work. But for me, it was like the bridge between all these different worlds, like the music that I was listening to in the 90s that was Alanis and Fiona and whole and all of that good stuff. And this kind of pop crazed world, which was what of. course she was kind of the whole that they hoped that she would fill to some degree. I hear Alanis in her so strongly, and I don't know if that's sort of a Canadian thing, if it's down to her diction, like their vowels, like just the way they sing, like there's an anger in their voices and both of their voices that's super appealing to me. And I don't know if that's

a coincidence or if there is some sort of Canadian aspect of one's voice that causes that. Yeah, women are really angry in Canada, apparently. And now we're angry not to be in Canada. But I think if you're growing up in Canada and you're listening to the radio, you're hearing, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, you're hearing Shanaya and you're hearing Alanis. And I think it's just like that has to be imprinted on the way that you sing and the way that even down to the way you, enunciate and approach your bowels and just everything. I think it's part of the blueprint. Absolutely. Like when you read about, you know, Averill's early years or childhood, you know,

she grew up, you know, singing in church a little bit, but then singing, you know, karaoke, like a lot of Shania, a lot of Faith Hill, like these big bombastic pop leading country divas. And that's obviously not the sound that Averill came out with. Like, do you hear a lot of Shania in her as well? like even like just the energy or the bombast of Shania? Oh, completely. And I mean, it's it was the complete, it was so not shocking to me seeing Avril come into the country music world, which he's done recently in the past few years.

Because I think anyone that grows up around Shania, it just becomes, you know, if you're from Canada, if you're a singer, if you're a woman, especially that was raised in the era when Shania Twain was on the radio, that's going to be part of how you sing. It's just like, you know, if you're a white dude growing up in America, you're going to like sort of sound like Bob Dylan.

It's just like part of the imprinting. But, yeah, absolutely. And I think that I'm with you is kind of a country song in a way. I was going to ask you, like I feel like it says, something very important about you. The first three big Averill singles are Skater Boy complicated and I'm with you. And I was going to ask you what your favorite one was. I feel like the answer to this question says a lot about your personality and your taste profile.

Like what's the best of those three songs? I mean, maybe the best is different than what my personal favorite would be. And I feel like maybe you would be able to guess that I would say I'm with you is my favorite of those three songs because it, is kind of like, it is, could be a big country ballad. And it just, it sort of melded all of the different worlds that I loved at the time. And it melded the worlds that I love now. I put on that song yesterday, kind of getting rid of talk to. And it was like, yeah, this, this song still slaps. I mean, for me, that's probably also the best out of the three. But I don't know, they're just all so good. And if you look back into those three songs, you can see.

so much of it that bleeds into so much of music that is being made right now, especially by young women. No, I agree. Like Olivia Rodriguez, you know, people of that nature, you know, even Sabrina Carpenter, you know, I agree with you completely that I'm with you is both my favorite and the best. I think it is very objectively the best of those three. And I hadn't thought of it that way, but I agree completely that it is like a country ballot. Like I can totally

hear, you know, whoever, like Miranda, like Harry Underwood, and somebody else trying to sing it as well as Averill does, but I think there's something very specific that Averill brings to it that makes it, you know, my favorite song of hers by far.

Did you personally have like a warp tour phase, like a pop punk phase? Like Paramore, obviously have the Nashville connection. Like when they came along, like was that sort of your interest with Averill or did you come more from the the Shania, sort of the diva side of things. Maybe this would be a disappointing answer because I didn't have, like, a paramour phase when they

came out. I love Paramore now. I think Haley Williams is, like, one of the most brilliant performers of all time. But I didn't actually get into that music at the time, I think, because, like, where I was in my life, all of that world, with the exception, obviously, of Paramore sort of reeked of misogyny. and like I saw what happened to women on rock radio at the end of the 90s and like getting swallowed up in this whole sort of like hyper masculine world that wasn't at all appealing to me. And I think that pushed me away. But I do think that Avril was like kind of the perfect niche for me and so many other not just women people and kind of my age group at that time.

and why it wasn't just, why she just wasn't confined to being music for younger people and why she resonated with, you know, people in their 20s and older. It was because it was like little bits of all the different worlds that we were a little bit interested or maybe some that we were more interested in than less, but all melded up in this one very catchy kind of spunky, fun person. and like I don't know how many times I got drunk at bars on you know in New York City and saying skaterboy and complicated like I mean I'm very grateful there's no video evidence of that hopefully I don't think so no one would be carrying like a camcorder to Niagara but I digress I think like it was for my specific you know group of friends at the time and I think so many others, it was almost like Aver was kind of uniting in this weird kind of way for a lot of us.

I'm personally disappointed that there's probably no karaoke evidence of you singing Skater Boy. I would, you know, those are great karaoke songs. I think that is an underrated aspect of them. Like there's something very fun, you know, you can sing them poorly, but you can sing them, right? Like they feel attainable, even if they aren't attainable vocally. And it's just, it's, I can imagine skater boy in particular, just being a lot of fun to sing while perhaps very, very, very, very drunk. I can see that working really well. Yeah. I think so based on whatever, you know, very distant memories I have. Sure. I believe I was having fun. Yeah, but there was like, even at the young age that I was, I was in a teenager.

I think, yeah, it was like 2021. There was even still like a nostalgia for me baked into that music. And to say there's a nostalgia for a 20-year-old is kind of funny, but I think there was. Totally. I wonder both as a listener and as a journalist now, like what you make of the whole anti-Britney framing of Avril and Michelle Branch of Vanessa Carlton, like every article that I read about Avril from 2002, 2003, she's explicitly framed as a punk rock alternative to Britney who plays guitar and writes her own songs and doesn't lip sync. Like, do you remember

hearing that narrative at the time? Like, what did you make of her, you know, her image, like how she was positioned when you first encountered her? I think that's so, I mean, for one, we always have to like put women into categories. So obviously we're going to do that and figure out ways to pit them against each other. So that's a given. But I mean, I don't think at the time I really thought of them in different categories. I know it was supposed to. You were supposed to think of Britney and Avril and, you know, Vanessa Carlton is all being different. But I think I just thought of them all in like a fun category of pop music. And like I probably sing Britney songs drunk in the bar after

Avrilavine songs drunk in the bar. I wasn't drunk in a bar that much. I feel like that's going to now be the highlight of this talk.

Okay. Noted. Sure. Just, yeah, just, Dad, if you're listening. Yeah, I mean, I think that narrative

is, of course it was going to happen. Like, if you look at a decade earlier or even five years earlier into the 90s, we did the same thing

with Alanis and Whole and the different categories of women in that era. We were like, you're a riot girl, you're more in punk, oh, you're in pop, you know, Alanis is too pop, so she doesn't get to play in this group and we keep doing the same cycle over and over again. And that was kind of a similar thing with, you know, Avril versus Brittany and blah, blah, blah. And, no, it's kind of silly to look back on.

Yeah. I wanted to talk to you, especially because, you know, the songwriting team, The Matrix, was a force behind, you know, those first three early hits. And then just a year later, Liz Fares' self-titled album comes out with some songs written with The Matrix. And it's more of a pop album than what she'd made previously, obviously. And like, a lot of critics hated it. And it was this really polarizing idea that she had betrayed her fans by going pop. Like, what do you make of Liz Fares' evolution, you know, beyond the 90s, you know, from Guyville to this

moment in 2003 where she's making music that at least seems to be very different. Yeah, I mean, I think Liz Fair, by the time we got to her second album, only her second album, she's married. By the time you get to her third album, she has a baby. She's, you know, so then you're making an album after going through all these steps of womanhood, and you're not supposed to be singing about, you know, hot white cum on a pop album. I don't know why that was so shocking to anyone. That's how the baby gets there.

But anyway, doesn't need to be a schoolhouse rock. But I think we've done so much of the sort of Liz Fair apology tour when people go back and look at that record and look at the music she made in that period and being like, oh, well, now we can give her, you know, we can be a little forgiving in terms of understanding that she was accepting. experimenting and all that.

And when you go to her shows, those songs, you know, everyone's singing those songs the same way they're singing those songs from Guyville, at least the women to the left and the right of me are singing those songs. I don't know. I mean, it's okay to experiment. And I think I remember at the time being a little bit pissed off. And now I love that record. I love this fair self-titled record.

it just took me time to sort of peel myself away from when I was being told I was supposed to think about that record. Right. Gwen Stefani is fascinated to me in kind of the same way, right? Because no doubt starts out as like a ska punk band's alternative rock. You know, but we get to the early 2000s. Like the band's getting popier and suddenly Gwen is a solo star collaborating with rappers. You know, and she's certainly parallel with Avril in that moment. Like are Gwen and Avery?

Averill weird mirror images of each other, like up to and including like being into country music more now? Yeah, it's kind of wild now that they've both, they're both, well, I don't know if Averill is like officially in the Nashville world, but it feels like it's coming, right? And I guess when Stefani is a country adjacent artist now, I don't really know. I think it's interesting to think about that too and so many of the DJs that were on the radio playing rock music in the late 90s and the early 2000s have since migrated over to country music

and that's so much why, like it's a big part of why you get this like nickel back country sound on the radio right now is because like there was a direct filter from, you know, Woodstock 99 dudes to Brantley Gilbert and, you know, it's true. I mean, it's sort of the same. It's like, you know, younger dude, older dude.

And this is the music meeting them at the different points in their lives. And in a way, I think Gwen Stefani kind of followed that route as the female counterpart pretty well. But it makes total sense that they've both ended up in country music. It's definitely no surprise. or country adjacent rather. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that, but I think you're right.

Like a 90s rock DJ is more than likely to be a 2020s country DJ. Is that just down to country radio mattering a whole lot more than rock radio? Like, is that just a function of like if you want to be a pop music DJ in the 2020s more than likely country is where you end up? Or is that like a taste profile, you know, that DJs sort of national. gravitate toward country as they get a little older. I think it's a lot of things. I think it's all those things you mentioned.

I think it's, you know, wonky radio consolidation stuff. I think that, yeah, if you were a dude and you were in your early 20s and you were programming Limp Biscuit and nickel back and that kind of music, like what is your place going to be now in the rock world? But you fit in beautifully on country radio.

where that sound is still very current. It's awesome. But, yeah. I guess we don't know, as you say, if Avril is going country officially. She's got this song with Nate Smith called Can You Die from a Broken Heart? And like, it's really good. And as you've said, you know, I'm with you. Like that's a country song right there.

Like if she does go the full country, the full country album route, what do you think Nashville in 2025? will make of Avril Levine. Wow. Yeah, I mean, and we don't know for a fact what she's going to do next, but Nashville will probably do what it always does with women is like a peer sort of delighted and then ignore them and not play them on the radio unless they're in a duet. So she is a very savvy woman.

She knew that the only way to get played on country radio is to have a single, if you're a woman is to have a single with a man. So, you know, she checked that box. The interesting thing about women in coming into country music that were prominent artists or, you know, started off their careers in the late 90s, early 90s, early 2000s, I don't want to say like are of a higher quality than the sort of nickelback crossovers. But you're seeing appreciation for the women that a lot of people now making country music women and country music grew up with. So you're seeing Alanis come out at, you know, some country award shows. I can't remember what it is. And you're seeing Avril come in and Cheryl Crow has been such a big part of the fiber of country music now

in these past couple years. Because this is what everyone was listening to when they were growing up or gosh, it really pains me to say, but what their parents were listening to. And, and, and, and, And that's really, that excites me because I happen to like those artists better. But I think it makes for a more unique sound in what's coming out of the women and country music that are influenced by those people. And I think you hear an Averill influence all across genre, for sure. Yeah. Just to wrap up, the other thing I have to laugh at reading Averill's earliest press is like all these interviews, about Averro and The Matrix and like, who wrote what part of complicated?

Like, you write so much about country music, about music, row, about the relationship between songwriters and superstars. Like, what do you make of the you don't write your own songs criticism in general, whether it's applied to country stars or pop stars or anyone? Like, does it matter at all? Did it ever matter at all, really? I mean, I find it nauseating. to be honest.

I mean, I know, well, especially here in Nashville, we have so many conversations about, you know, quote-unquote authenticity and what's authentic. And it's really interesting to see how that's applied and who it's applied to. And I remember when that was going on at the time when Averill's first record came out. I remember it now.

And I, you know, it's funny to think about that time, and especially that time in a women's career, and how if you're a young woman and you're coming out with a record and you're in your teens, you're kind of this like still this freak novelty joke, but if you're a man, you're, you know, you're a genius, essentially. I don't know if Philly Joe Armstrong was like 15 or something when Green Day made their first record. But I don't think people were talking about, about the two of them the same way, obviously. But here in Nashville, you get a million people in one room,

and nobody really cares about who writes what or who sings it, unless you're getting into these sort of really, these authenticity conversations. But I don't think, you know, of course, again, it's like one of those same things that, of course, this was going to happen. You have to know. You see the same thing with Olivia Rodriguez.

and you see the same thing with Chapel Rohn and her producer, and you see the same pattern playing out with every woman that comes into the fold and makes a really great album and happens to have a man in the room, then we're trying to figure out how much of that we can attribute to the man and how much we can attribute to the woman. Same thing, Alanis, you know, I could list this on forever, and you've talked about so many of these already on your show, that the first thing we immediately want to do is, like,

try to figure out how much of that came from the dude and how much of it came for the woman because we can't really, we can't sit back and be like, oh, this is all attributed. We can attribute all of this to a woman's genius because that's too confusing to our heads. Yes. I think you're right. In conclusion, Avrilaville will be the CMA's entertainer of the year for 2026. And I'm very excited about that. It's an idea.

It's time has come. It's always great to talk to you, Marissa. Thanks so much. You too. Thanks for having me. Thanks to our guest this week, Marissa Moss. Thanks to our producers Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help.

Thanks to Julianna Ress for fact-checking. And thanks very much to you for listening. We'll be back in a couple weeks. I hope you have a jovial holiday season. And in the meantime, let's all go listen to Complicated. by Avrilovine. Talk to you soon.