FLASHBACK: ‘Let Go’ By Avril Lavigne

Oh boy. Have you ever gone back and listened to albums you used to love? Welcome to listening back on all your embarrassing phases and judging/flexing on it accordingly.

It’s 2002, and the only thing I know is I LOVE Avril Lavigne, and it is not embarrassing at all.

She was the ORIGINAL anti-popstar ‘It’ girl, a concept my young self understands absolutely none of – all I know is that I was staring at a goddess and I just love Avril Lavigne so much.

I love her so much that one Christmas I got her debut album, Let Go, twice. TWICE. Because my personal branding was based on how much I loved her. I was not mad about this, because one copy had an extra CD with live recordings and music videos. Ah, simpler times. My wants are not as easy pleased these days.

I am ready to back this album to the GRAVE. Matter of fact, I think I trust my prepubescent music taste more than most of my teenage preferences. So, 18 years later, I put the same trusty CD to the test.

Straight away, ‘Losing Grip’ comes on and I AM FEELING FEELS. Still relate to this lol. Don’t ask me how a 7 year old related to this, but I FELT it all back then, I FEEL it all now. 

It’s such a wild feeling to know all the words to an album you haven’t listened to for 10+ years. Man, all those years invested in Avril are paying off now. If those ‘Avril is dead’ conspiracy theories were true, I might’ve been a great replacement for – except for my face, I look nothing like her.

‘Complicated’ still bangs. ‘Unwanted’ still bangs. Petition to have Avril front a heavy metal album. Because we all know it’d bang.

And we come to the eternally iconic ‘Sk8er Boi’. Confirmed: Avril created modern text speech. These lyrics should be embarrassing but they’re ART. The memes are proof. EVERLASTING.

Oh god, ‘I’m With You’ wrecks me all over again. I used to cry, completely entranced, as a kid. And now, Avril has brought feeling back to my cold, lifeless, jaded heart. THANK YOU, AVRIL, I FEEL AGAIN.

I thought I was going through heartbreak listening to this spectacular debut but ‘Things I’ll Never Say’ plays, and this, THIS is the only song people should link to their crushes from now on. And it will either be a GREAT IDEA or completely awkward and creepy purely for the ‘marry me’ lines.

Is it too bold and brash to state that without Avril Lavigne, emo would have never happened?

And we end with ‘Naked’ – which I pronounced as ‘Nay-kt’ as a kid.

In conclusion: I love this album. I want to say Avril deserved a Grammy for it, but we now know they are RIGGED and well… the 2003 noms were solid. 

Still, I love Avril Lavigne. All these years later – and, tbh, I probably always will. I just really love her. My pre-teen self was right to worship her. And you should definitely, too.

Tune in next week, and hopefully we will uncover a super embarrassing album from my emo/screamo-phase. No promises though, I don’t know if I want to out some of that stuff.