“Complicated”—Avril Lavigne

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I'm Yasi Solak and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bandsplain, 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 Madchester, I'm talking baggy, I'm talking shoegaze, I'm talking Britpop, mate. So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's wok-cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late-night half-price appetizers are here at Applebee's. Saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings, crispy, cheesy mozzarella sticks, creamy spinach and artichoke dip. Your favorite apps half-price available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more. Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright 2026 Applebee's Restaurant LLC. 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,

• 1:50Speaker 01

  to our friends in Los Angeles, I'm both very delighted and very sorry to inform you that the 60 Songs Bandsplain 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.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  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, musicologically, about the chorus to Everywhere by Michelle Branch? It's the vocal harmonies, right? The diverging michelles, the more human sounding lead Michelle, joyously

• 3:24Speaker 01

  intertwined with the more computer sounding harmonizing michelles. Something about the euphoric, melodic, skywriting tapestry of exquisitely layered digital and IRL michelles really, really, really, really, really does it for me. This chorus sounds like 50,000 lovelorn teenagers doodling the names of their crushes in flowery cursive on their trapper keepers simultaneously.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Best song of the first decade of the 21st century. This statement directly contradicts previous, very recent statements I have 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 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

• 4:47Speaker 01

  for everyone. So ask yourself this one question. If you're in your car, listening to the radio, what song 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.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  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 dry 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 at 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

• 6:02Speaker 01

  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 Pults, a singer. singer-songwriter and rambunctious Canadian-American rock star type who collaborated extensively with Jewel.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  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 Bracelet. 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.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  "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 teen pop, the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC stuff that was going on. The fact that it sounded different was maybe what drew people in initially," end quote.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  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 NSYNC. Teen Pop's got TRL, it's got all of MTV in a chokehold. Teen Pop's got the charts in a chokehold. The NSYNC 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.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  And so Michelle Branch, with her guitar and her straightforward songs she wrote in her teenage bedroom, and her sound more evocative of Lisa Loeb and Jewel and Sheryl 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, "Cause when there's you, I feel whole." Everyone jump in the minivan, we're going back to Home Depot.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  I'm all out of faith. This is how I feel. Her sound is also evocative of "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia. Splendid. I got one more delirious Michelle Branch whoosh for you. In 2002, when smooth has 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.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  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 N' 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 knuckle-headed ideas about who she should sound like, lots of scrapped release dates. She does some

• 11:30Speaker 01

  cool stuff in the meantime. Michelle and the singer Jessica Harp form a country-pop duo called The Wreckers, 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.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  This is the title track. And yeah, maybe this is a broken-hearted, 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.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Here we have Alicia Beth Moore, a native of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, better known to the world as the singer and songwriter, and Ariel Silks 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 R&B record, a lot of TLC and Timbaland 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 and executive producer, big shot music biz guy, L.A. Reid, wanted her to sing that stuff. And so there you go. "L.A. told me you'll

• 14:17Speaker 01

  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-S-U-N-D-A-Z-T-O-O-D. Miss-undas-tod. This album is way more her. It's way more of a rock thing, in part because Linda Perry, she of 90s alt-rock stars, four non-blondes, 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. Reid's out of the picture now, and Pink's

• 15:01Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Category one, you are literally Britney Spears.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  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 Britney, sells, okay, only around five.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  But only around 5 million. Come on now. And at least you got to cover Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll. Okay, but what if you're a female pop star and you're not Britney Spears? Hmm. Perhaps the LA reads of the world will decide that you're in category number two. Women in direct competition with Britney Spears.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  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's 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.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  You got everyone from Hilary 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.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Here we have a 2002 CBS News article with the headline, "The Anti-Britneys." And this article begins, "Since Britney Spears arrived on the music scene three years ago, pop music has molded its teen queens according to the three Bs: blondness, beauty, and bustiers. But a new crop of female singer-songwriters is challenging the notion that you have to bare your navel and cavort in tight clothes to be sexy and successful in pop music." End quote. And then it names 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

• 20:14Speaker 01

  in a moving flatbed truck. She's playing piano on the highway with a 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."

• 20:53Speaker 01

  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, "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

• 21:38Speaker 01

  To change everything you are. And if you get to be too huge a pop star, the 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 2002 debut album in America alone and 16 million copies total worldwide.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  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 Britney and there is the anti Britney. She is a girl and she is a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 11th episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. It's, it's still funny. And this week we are discussing Complicated by Avril Lavigne from her 2002 debut album, Let Go. Can I please play you just the first seven seconds of the complicated video? This is how Avril Lavigne enters the complicated video.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  What's up, boys?

• 23:41Speaker 03

  So what do you guys want to do today?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Dude, you want to crash the mall?

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Nice!

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Okay!

• 23:48Speaker 01

  What's up, boys? Nice, yes, she's on a skateboard. I love marketing. I love pop star marketing. I love high stakes image calibration. It feels like everyone called Avril Lavigne the anti-Britney. Even Weird Al Yankovic called Avril the anti-Britney.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  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!

• 24:25Speaker 01

  This is Weird Al interviewing Avril Lavigne for his MTV show "Al TV" in 2003. And yes, I can cram Weird Al Yankovic into any topic of conversation. Thank you for noticing. And also, this is a Weird Al spoof interview, right? Where Avril's answers are clearly not in response to Al's questions to heighten the awkwardness and weirdness and Al-ness. Nonetheless...

• 24:49Speaker 04

  Britney Spears isn't better than anyone else. Oh, really? Not even Hitler?

• 24:56Speaker 01

  I found this clip at 1:00 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 Avril Lavigne's "Complicated", and listening to it again now, I have no idea how I managed to forget he did this. You better brace yourself.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Wow. Oh, wow. I don't know about you, but I need a second to compose myself. Hold on.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  I feel like watching the 2001 cult classic 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 teen pop versus punk versus pop punk and the perceived authenticity of those genres, et cetera. I do very much enjoy du jour, the fictional boy band in this movie named du jour. Du jour means friendship. Du jour means family. Du jour means seat belts. Du jour means crash positions.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  No, instead, Josie and the Pussycats is a delightful excoriation of capitalism and shameless product placement and sub. Subliminal advertising and all other craven teenager based marketing schemes. The villains, played by Parker Posey, AKA Lysping 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 its Mr. Movie Phone going, "Conform! Free will is overrated! Jump on the bandwagon! There is no such place as Area 51!"

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Subversive hijinks ensue, spoiler alert, the human spirit triumphs over capitalism. What a picture. The top Letterboxd review of this movie just says, "RIP Karl Marx. You would have loved Josie and the Pussycats (2001)" End quote. Hard agree. A specter is haunting Europe. The specter of the warped tour.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  This song is called "Pretend to Be Nice." It was written by god-tier songwriter Adam Schlesinger, he of the god-tier power pop band Fountains of Wayne. Pretend to Be Nice and 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.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  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 ideals. 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 gonna 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.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I bring up Josie and the Pussycats now because I think the song Pretend to be Nice would have manifested Avril Lavigne. If Avril Lavigne 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 nonexistent private lives.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  And the anti-Britneys can be every bit as cynically manipulated and ruthlessly controlled as the Britneys. Or at least Mega Records tries to control them.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  If you had completely had your way with how to market, how to position this, this young girl, what would we be seeing today?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Here we have famous journalist Jane Pauli 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.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I probably would have had her prettied up and, you know, maybe, maybe the

• 32:31Speaker 05

  That would have been a little tighter, a little more revealing and, uh, you know.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  That's why these people get paid the big bucks. L.A. Reid is about to say something truly extraordinary, though. You better brace yourself for this. Also, I'm excited for you to hear this.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  A little, a little more sparkle going on, a little more bling bling. 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.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  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 Avril Lavigne, and Avril Lavigne has the tremendously good sense to ignore him entirely. And that's what immediately made her a fantastic pop star.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  I'm gonna 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 eight E.R. spaced B.O.I.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  And that is the most complicated thing about it. I should have let her sing the whole opening verse. All of this is tremendously important.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  The 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 Avril Lavigne sings the words punk and ballet is a rich text. The audible sneer, the slightly upturned lip when Avril Lavigne sings the words, "They

• 35:43Speaker 01

  had a problem with his baggy clothes."

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Avril Lavigne was born on September 27th, 1984 in Belleville, Ontario. Many years later, when she will infamously mispronounce David Bowie's name during a Grammys conference, she calls him David Bowie, Avril 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 older, family moves to the nearby small town of Napanee, Ontario. Yes, Avril Lavigne is the pride, the joy, the audible sneer of Canada. In 2024, she was honored. She was appointed to the Order

• 36:40Speaker 01

  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 Devalley Christian. Avril 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. Avril starts playing guitar. According to the Best Damn Avril Lavigne podcast, the first chord Avril Lavigne learns on guitar is G.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  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. Avril 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. Reid.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  She signs to Arista Records and the battle to mold Avril Lavigne begins. Talking to Jane Pauli on NBC, Avril says, quote, "Everyone thought I was gonna be like a Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and I'd be like, uh, no, I wanna rock."

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And verily, Avril Lavigne rocks, and Avril Lavigne 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 verve, is perhaps not quite her definition of rocking. Avril Lavigne's debut album, released on June 4, 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 Avril Lavigne has three good songs and 10 not-good songs, which is to say that all the other songs are kinda [bleep]. But that's rude.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  That is crazy rude, honestly. Can't I just pretend to be nice? Can't I just actually be nice? Sure, I can. There is 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 Lavigne herself wants to hear herself.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  This is the first song in the loudest song, the hardest rocking song on Let Go. It is called Losing Grip. Every vowel Avril Lavigne 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."

• 41:08Speaker 01

  There's a ton of Alanis Morissette here. Speaking of being the pride and joy and audible sneer of Canada, Avril 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 Lavigne 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.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  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 Lavigne 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.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  And then let Avril stunt a little bit.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  And then sing all that again. I fucked 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.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  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 Avril Lavigne 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 Avril Lavigne,

• 45:03Speaker 01

  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."

• 45:44Speaker 01

  And then there's the other tension, the backstage tension, the mega records type tension. The tension between Avril Lavigne and The Matrix about who wrote what. Media wise, when you read big Avril Lavigne 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 Avril and what she portends for pop music. In a 2002 Entertainment Weekly cover story headlined, "Avril Lavigne, the Anti-Britney", a record programmer named Tom Pullman, who works for Z100 in New York City, Tom declares that Avril is, quote,

• 46:27Speaker 01

  The defining artist of this phase 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 Lavigne's early press is, "Does she write her own songs?" Or, "What percentage of her

• 47:07Speaker 01

  own songs does she write exactly?" There are several arduous paragraphs in Avril's 2003 Rolling Stone Britney Slayer cover story devoted to who wrote what part of "Complicated." There is a medium-friendly disagreement. Avril says, quote, "When I wrote 'Complicated,' I was feeling what the song talks about, that there are tons of people in the world who are fake, who are two-faced," end quote. Avril is 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

• 47:48Speaker 01

  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 conceived the ideas on guitar and piano. Avril would come in and sing a few melodies, change a word here or there. She came up with a couple of things in '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

• 48:29Speaker 01

  lot less than pop music now, whether our favorite pop stars write their own songs, etc. But it is unfortunately- Relevant to Avril Lavigne 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 Lavigne, even in this moment, acknowledges the importance of these three Matrix songs, but it's even more important to her that she jettison the Matrix sound ASAP. In Rolling Stone, Avril says, quote, "I don't feel like Complicated represents me and my

• 49:13Speaker 01

  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 Avril Lavigne 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.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Early Avril Lavigne 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 Avril Lavigne live in January 2003 at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Columbus,

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Ohio during her first national tour, which was literally named the "Try to Shut Me Up" Tour. And 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 Avril 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 Lavigne 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.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  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.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Matter of fact, let's jump right to the dramatic conclusion. If it matters a great deal to you that Avril Lavigne is not lip syncing, then this will be the moment when you're most impressed by how much not lip syncing she's doing. The punk adjacent sneer of the first "I'm here." And then, yes, the ecstatic, delirious whoosh with which Avril 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.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  I should note that Avril Lavigne, constantly hectored by everyone from Weird Al to Jane Pauley about the whole anti-Britney thing, Avril 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. Avril said a few medium rude things about Britney over the years,

• 53:39Speaker 01

  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 Britney alone. You heard it here first. Awfully prescient of Avril, I think. I should also note that Avril Lavigne's best album is her third album, which came out in 2007 and is called "The Best Damn Thing," and starts like this.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  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 Lavigne 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 gonna be teenagers forever. In Rolling Stone in 2003, Avril says, quote, "The main thing is, you gotta work with the artist." A lot of people didn't want to listen to me, but I spoke up until they did.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  And I can always say, screw you guys if you're not gonna work with me. If they're not gonna listen to me, I'm not gonna do things. Try and make me. I'm not gonna. End quote. Girlfriend is the second best song she ever did. Or maybe the third best after Hot. Alls I know is the sound of Avril Lavigne 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.

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• 56:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Good to be back. Thanks for having me.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So your next book is all about 90s female rock stars. And Avril Lavigne, 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 Elastica or L7. Like, is there more 90s in Avril than we want to admit?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, I was, so I was around, I think, 20 when her first album came out, when Letgo 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.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  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 Hole and all of that good stuff. And this kind of pop crazed world, which was what of course she was kind of the hole that they hoped that she would fill to some degree.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, women are really angry in Canada, apparently.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  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 Shania 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, you know, down to the way you enunciate and approach your vowels and just everything. I think it's part of the blueprint.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Like when you read about, you know, Avril'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 Avril 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?

• 59:27Speaker 02

  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 she'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 gonna like, sort of sound like Bob Dylan. It's just like,

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  part of the imprinting. But, yeah, absolutely. And I think that "I'm With You" is kind of a country song, in a way.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask you, like, I feel like it says something very important about you. You know, the first three big Avril singles are "Skater Boy," "Complicated," and "I'm With You." And I was gonna ask you what your favorite one was. I feel like the answer to this question, like, says a lot about your personality and your taste profile. Like, what's the best of those three songs?

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  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's just, it's 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 ready to talk to you, and I was like, yeah, this, this song still slaps. The, 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

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  it that bleeds into so much of music that is being made right now, especially by young women.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  No, I agree. Like, Olivia Rodrigo, 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 ballad. Like, I can totally hear, you know, whoever, like Miranda, like Carrie Underwood, like, and somebody else trying to sing it as well as Avril does. But I think there's something very specific that Avril brings to it that, that makes it, you know, my favorite song of hers by far. Did you personally have like a war tour phase, like a pop punk phase? Like Paramore, obviously have the Nashville connection, like when they came along,

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  like was that sort of your interest with Avril? Or did you come more from the Shania, sort of the diva side of things?

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Maybe this would be a disappointing answer because I didn't have like a Paramore phase when they came out. I love Paramore now. I think Hayley 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.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  But I do think that Avril was like kind of the perfect niche for me and so many other, not just women, people in 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 twenties and older 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 and 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 sang Skater Boy and Calm the Kated.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  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, 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 Avril was kind of uniting in this weird, in this weird kind of way for a lot of.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Hmm, I'm personally disappointed that there's probably no karaoke evidence of you singing Skater Boy. I would, you know, those are, they're 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 drunk. I can see that working really well.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so, based on whatever, you know, very distant memories I have.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  I, I believe I was having fun. Um, yeah, but there was like, even at the young age that I was, I was in a teenager, I think, yeah, I was like 20, 21. There was even still like a nostalgia for me baked into that music. Um, and to say there's a nostalgia for a 20 year old is kind of funny, but I think there was.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Totally. I, I wonder both as a listener and as a journalist now, like what you make of the whole anti-Britney framing, you know, of Avril and Michelle Branch and 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?

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  I think that's so, I mean, for one, we always have to like put women into categories. So obviously, we're gonna do that and figure out ways to put 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 as all being different. But I think I just thought, I thought of them all in like, a fun category of pop music. And like, I probably sang Britney's songs drunk in the bar after Avril Lavigne's songs drunk in the bar. I wasn't drunk in a bar that much. I feel like that's gonna now be the high. Highlight of this talk.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  Okay. Noted.

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  Just, yeah, just Dad, if you're listening. Yeah, I mean, I think that narrative is, of course, it was gonna 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 Hole and the different categories of women in that era. We were like, you're 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 Britney and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know, kind of silly to look back on.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  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 Phair's 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 Phair's 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?

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think Liz Phair, 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. Um, I don't know why that was so shocking to anyone. That's how the baby gets there. But anyway, um, doesn't need to be a Schoolhouse Rock. But I think we've done so much of the sort of Liz Phair apology tour.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  I think I remember at the time being a little bit pissed off and now I love that record. I love Liz Phair 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.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Right. Gwen Stefani is fascinating to me in kind of the same way, right? Because No Doubt starts out as like a ska punk band, alternative rock, you know, but we get to the early 2000s. Like the band's getting poppier 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 Avril weird mirror images of each other, like up to and including like being into country music more now?

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of wild now that they've both, they're both, well, I don't know if Avril is like officially in the Nashville world, but it feels like it's coming, right? Um, and I guess Gwen Stefani is a country adjacent artist now. I don't really know. Um. I think it's interesting to think about that, too. And like, 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, Nickelback country sound on the radio right now is because, like, there was a direct filter from, you

• 1:10:50Speaker 02

  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 and it makes total sense that they've both ended up in country music. It's definitely no surprise, or country adjacent, rather.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  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 naturally gravitate toward country as they get a little older?

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  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 Bizkit and Nickelback 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.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  I 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 Lavigne?

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Hmm, wow. Yeah, I mean, and we don't know for a fact what she's gonna do next, but Nashville will probably do what it always does with women is like appear sort of delighted and then ignore them and not play them on the radio unless unless they're in a duet. So she's 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.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  I don't want to say like are of a higher quality than the sort of Nickelback crossovers, but you're you're seeing appreciation for the women that a lot of people now making country music, women in country music grew up with. So you see, 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 Sheryl Crow has been such a big part of the fiber of country music now in these past couple of 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. Um, and and that's really, that excites me because I happen to like those artists better.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  Um, but I think it makes for a a more unique sound in what's coming out of the women in country music that are influenced by those people. Um, and I think you hear and you hear an Avril Avril influence all across genre, for sure.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Just to wrap up, the other thing I have to laugh at reading Avril's earliest press is like all these interviews about Avril 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?

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  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 Avril's first record came out. I remember it now, and I,

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  it's funny to think about that time, and especially that time in a woman'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 Billy Joe Armstrong was like 15 or something when Green Day made their first record, but I don't think people were talking 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...

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  These authenticity conversations.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  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 Rodrigo and you see the same thing with Chapel Rohn and her producer and you see that's 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 was 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

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  much of it came from 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.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  I think you're right. In conclusion, Avril Lavigne will be the CMA's Entertainer of the Year for 2026. And I'm very excited about that. It's, it's, it's an idea. It's time has come. It's always great to talk to you, Marissa. Thanks so much.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  You too. Thanks for having me.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Thanks to our guest this week, Marissa Moss. Thanks to our producers Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sayles. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help. Thanks to Juliana Ress for fact checking and thanks very much to you for listening. We'll be back in a couple of weeks. I hope you have a jovial holiday season. And in the meantime, let's all go listen to Complicated by Avril Lavigne. Talk. When you shop pickup at Kroger, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries selected just for you. Our associates are committed to getting every detail right, carefully handpicking your items, checking for quality and freshness and packing your order.

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