Vinnie Barone

Music Monday: Avril Lavigne

Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatle’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here. So with that, let’s get started.

Avril Romana Lavigne was born on September 24, 2019 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. She was named Avril by her father because the name Avril is the French word for the month of April. Which actually makes no sense at all. I had to do a double take when I learned that, she was named after the month April, despite being born in September. That would be like getting a cat and naming that cat Scooby or Air Bud. Anyway, her musical talents were recognized when she was young and she had the support by both her parents to follow those talents. In 1999, Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with the Shania Twain at the Corel Centre in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people. Her talents were made known and she was then flown to New York and immediately signed to a two album record contract worth $2.5 million. (As somebody who didn’t know this at all before, think about how fucking crazy this is- what are the odds that she wins this radio contest to perform at a concert and was actually a good singer at 15 years old? Imagine if Sally from Math class won instead? Even if Avril’s career flopped she made $2.5 MILLION DOLLARS on a fluke concert contest. It’s absolutely insane how things like this happen). September Lavigne then spent 2 years figuring out her sound and the overall direction of her debut album. Let Go, was released in June of 2002. The album was a success, being certified four times platinum and spawning two top 5 hits (Complicated, I’m With You) and a top 10 hit (Sk8er Boi, which I’m going to talk about later obviously but I’m pretty shocked it only hit number 10 on the charts). With these three singles, Lavigne became the second artist in history to have three top-ten songs from a debut album. She was nominated for EIGHT Grammy’s (she didn’t win any but neither did Sally from math class so I don’t think Avril was too beat up over it). Her second album, Under My Skin was released in May 2004 and the album was fine, but in terms of following up the smash debut she had, it fell short. Oh well, she had a top 10 (My Happy Ending) and a top 20 hit (Don’t Tell Me) for her troubles. I should also note that during this time Kelly Clarkson’s hit song, Breakaway was dominating airwaves, but fun fact, it was written by Avril Lavigne who wanted it on her album but gave it to Kelly Clarkson because the record label didn’t think it matched Lavigne’s sound. Here’s her demo version of the song. In Avril 2007 (that was intentional) her third album, The Best Damn Thing was released and it represented a pivot in her sound. The grunge-pop inspired album gave Avril her first number one hit (Girlfriend) and another top 20 hit (Keep Holding On). I was also shocked that When You’re Gone only hit 24 on the Billboard chart, that song was everywhere when it came out. After a brief hiatus, Goodbye Lullaby followed in 2011. The album represented a side of Avril we haven’t seen before, as this was more sad songs and represented yet another style change from the pop rock sound we came to know and love. She got back to her roots in 2013 with her self titled album and it was met with rave reviews by critics. Despite the positive reviews it only had one song hit top 20 on the charts (Here’s to Never Growing Up). She also released an album this previous year, but it didn’t have anything chart in the top 50. I know she battled killing herself and being replaced with a body double in 2003 Lyme Disease so that could explain the hiatus and the delayed releases but it still feels like she is a shell of her former self.

Usually when I do these rankings, I generally have a good idea of what my top 5 will be before I do my research and uncover bops and bangers I may have forgotten about. However, this one is different, I actually had no idea what I would pick as number one going into this.

Toughest Omission- When You’re Gone: I’ve only made songs that hit the top 20 on the charts eligible to be included on the list, this song is single handily making me think I need to extend it to include songs in the top 25. This song is a masterpiece, it has you feel approximately five different emotions in the four minutes its on for. You feel sad, angry, angst, empowered, and powerless all at once and folks, its a ROLLER COASTER. Just an absolutely tremendous power ballad.

5. My Happy Ending: I was between this and Keep Holding On. Two similar songs with two different meanings but ultimately had to give the nod to this one. This song brings me back to getting rejected by a girl at recess while I was in fourth grade, I downloaded this song off Limewire that day.

4. Here’s to Never Growing Up: This is the last song by Avril that I liked, and boy do I LIKE it. This tune just makes me want to go get a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and just reminisce the days of not being able to vote and having to use a fake ID to get into bars on a Thursday night. Simpler times.

3. Sk8er Boi: What can be said about Sk8er Boi that hasn’t already been said. You are almost guaranteed to hear it at every bar you’re at that plays early 2000s throwbacks. This was the original You Belong With Me and is probably the reason for a lot of girls falling in love with skinny tattooed men.

2. Girlfriend: is anyone else surprised that this is April’s (again intentional) only number one hit? It blew my mind. As a 13 year old boy when this song came out there was always something about Avril in that red wig. I strive to have the confidence she had while writing this song, truly the embodiment of a strong willed person. Also this tweet makes you think.:

🤔

1. Complicated: I didn’t want to overthink the rankings of her songs too much so I played it safe. I realize by not making this list complicated, I had to make it complicated if that makes sense.

Her worst songs are anything released after 2015, so instead I’m going to rank her potential names using the different months in French.

12. Décembre Lavigne (December)

11. Octobre Lavigne (October)

10. Novembre Lavigne (November)

9. Septembre Lavigne (September, should have been her real name)

8. Mai Lavigne (May)

7. Aout Lavigne

6. Février Lavigne (February)

5. Juin Lavigne (June)

4. Janvier Lavigne (January)

3. Avril Lavigne (If you don’t know what month this is after reading this entire blog, well, I don’t know what to tell you)

2. Juillet Lavigne (July)

1. Mars Lavigne (March)

What this study shows me is that while Avril is a fine name, you could have named your kid Mars and passed on it. What an out of this world name that would have been.

Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Avril Levigne song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

TitleYearPeak chart positionsAlbum
Complicated20022Let Go
Sk8er Boi200210Let Go
I’m With You20024Let Go
Don’t Tell Me200420Under My Skin
My Happy Ending20049Under My Skin
Keep Holding On200617The Best Damn Thing
Girlfriend20071The Best Damn Thing
What the Hell201111Goodbye Lullaby
Here’s to Never Growing Up201320Avril Lavigne

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