Songoftheday 11/5/24 - You held my hand and walked me home I know, while you gave me that kiss you were something like this...

 

 

"Don't Tell Me" - Avril Lavigne

from the album Under My Skin (2004)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song comes from Canadian pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne, who scored a trio of top ten hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 from her debut album with "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi", and "I'm With You".  In the spring of 2004, Avril Lavigne returned with her sophomore effort Under My Skin. Bringing on a new set of producers, Lavigne's first single from the set was "Don't Tell Me". Written by the singer with her guitarist Evan Taubfield, the lyrics have Lavigne confronting a "presumed" boyfriend that is pressuring her to go all the way. She stands her ground that he just can't "charm...you in my pants". At the end she declares that she's better off alone. The production from Butch Walker goes completely away from the bright pop-punk she became famous for, but just an adult-pop lullaby sung with a touch of snark atop an over-loud guitar crunch. The music video sees Avril haunting the guy all over the city....

"Don't Tell Me" did manage to return Lavigne to the top-40 on the Hot 100 in June of 2004, a rather letdown for a highly anticipated follow-up. On the radio, the song went to #9 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart and #10 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, but lack of a commercial single definitely hurt it with her younger fans who would've picked it up. Rather, RCA Record in the name of "not cannibalizing album sales" bet on it helping, which it sort of did, landing her first #1 album on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but selling half of her debut. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Croatia (#2), Italy (#4), Canada (#4 Airplay/#5 Sales), the United Kingdom (#5), Spain (#8), Ireland (#9), Switzerland (#9), Germany (#10), Australia (#10), and Greece (#10), and made the top-40 in Austria (#12), Norway (#12), Denmark (#14), New Zealand (#15), the Netherland (#20), Belgium (#22 Flanders/#28 Wallonia), Sweden (#30), and Hungary (#30).

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

(4/10)

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Here's Avril performing the song on the Ellen Show...

and lastly, on tour in Japan in 2005...

Up tomorrow: A couple of rappers lessen the pace.