Songoftheday 6/26/23 - Chill out, what ya yellin' for? Lay back, it's all been done before...

 

 

"Complicated" - Avril Lavigne

from the album Let Go (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 27

 

Today's song comes from Avril Lavigne, who grew up in Ontario, Canada, where she started singing as a child initially country music songs. However, by the time she was discovered and signed to Arista Records, Avril had found a home in the local Canadian skateboarder community, and her music veered into that pop-punk direction, with a singer/songwriter edge. Her debut album Let Go was released in the late spring of 2002, preceded by the single "Complicated". Written by Lavigne with the production team the Matrix (Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards, and Scott Sparks), the lyrics have Avril confronting a close person, assumedly a boyfriend, about how they put on a different and more annoying persona when they're around other people. It's a simple premise most people can understand, and more mature than her years (she was seventeen at the time). However this is placed over a very simplistic melody that inspired a million copy-cats. The music video put Avril's teen angst in full display despite the lyrics, placing the singer and her band making havoc at the mall, which was able to balance the more grounded words and production in the track. MTV of course ate it up, and with that exposure Avril found herself with a huge hit on her first try...

"Complicated" became Avril's first top-40 hit in America, climbing to the runner-up position on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in August of 2002. On the radio, the song spent two months at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, and sixteen weeks at the top of the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, while getting to #13 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list (a testament to the hidden conformity in the track). Internationally, the single topped the charts in Australia, Ireland, Norway, and New Zealand, and reached the top ten in Italy (#2), Austria (#2), Denmark (#2), Sweden (#2), Switzerland (#2), Hungary (#2), the United Kingdom (#3), Germany (#3), Belgium (#3 Flanders/#5 Wallonia), Poland (#3), the Netherlands (#4), Czech Republic (#4), Croatia (#5), Spain (#7), and Romania (#8). (In her native Canada, the former chart magazine RPM had shut down; while on the radio the song went to #1, in sales it stalled at #21.)

 

The Let Go album released in June of that year, spent two weeks at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, lingering 97 weeks on the list, going on to sell over seven million albums. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Complicated" was nominated for both Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, losing both to lite-jazz singer Norah Jones for "Don't Know Why". Let Go was also up for Best Pop Vocal Album, which also went to Jones for Come Away With Me, as she also nabbed the Best New Artist award (it was Norah's year). 

Both Avril and the Let Go album will return to the series

(7/10)

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Here's Avril performing the song live on the British chart show Top Of The Pops...

 

 Next up, at a televised show in 2002 as well...

Here's Lavigne on her Best Damn Tour in 2008...

and lastly, fast forwarding to this year for a webcast acoustic "one-take" gig...

Up tomorrow: R&B "boy-band" has requirements.