Songoftheday 9/8/23 - He was a boy she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?

 

 

"Sk8er Boi" - Avril Lavigne

from the album Let Go (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from Canadian singer/songwriter Avril Lavigne, whose debut single "Complicated" rose to the runner-up spot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the summer of 2002. The second single from Avril's Let Go album was the frenetic pop-punk of "Sk8er Boi". Written by Lavigne with the Matrix production team of Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards, and Scott Spock, the lyrics tell a tale of a young couple who live on different ends of the social class spectrum, with the girl being peer-pressured out of following her heart to be with him. Of course, karma comes in when he eventually becomes a famous rock star, and she's stuck at home as a single mother pining for him (as her friends about-face on their love for the guy). The kicker comes in the third verse, and Avril reveals herself as the boy's current girlfriend, sticking it into her face that she's his. It's puerile, but it's also what you'd expect from someone still in her teens.And with the punchy fresh production, the young adult audience this is geared for totally took to the twist on the normal Romeo and Juliet narrative.The music video eschews the plot of the song to just have Lavigne giving an on-the-spot performance in the middle of a street...

"Sk8er Boi" became Avril's second top ten hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in November of 2002. On the radio, the song spent a week at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and peaked at #23 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. (It probably would've gone higher on the charts if it was available as a commercial single.) Internationally, the single reached the top ten in New Zealand (#2), Canada (#2 Radio/#29 Sales), Australia (#3), Ireland (#3), Croatia (#6), Austria (#7), Belgium (#7 Flanders/#23 Wallonia), the United Kingdom (#8), Italy (#8), and Romania (#9). It also made the top-40 in the Netherlands (#11), Denmark (#11), Sweden (#12), Greece (#12), Norway (#14), the Czech Republic (#15), Switzerland (#17), Germany (#18), and France (#28). At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Sk8er Boi" was nominated for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, losing to Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen". 

Both Avril and the album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's Lavigne performing the song on Letterman...

For her appearance at the BRIT Awards in 2003, Avril brought out all the drums. She was nominated for Best International Breakthrough Act (losing to Norah Jones) and Best International Female Solo Act (which went to Pink).

And lastly, in concert in Toronto from 2008...

Up on Monday: One for the povvos from this hip-hop group.