28 September 2002
I recall hearing quite a few people at the time using the epithet ‘anti-Britney’ about Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’. Two decades later, here’s where I get to say: not so fast. Yes, there was a space in the early ’00s for a young female singer who wasn’t presenting sexualised content in sexualised wrapping. However, the problem wasn’t Britney; young women in the public eye have found themselves and their career opportunities corralled into male-gaze objectification since the year dot.
Avril Lavigne found a particular, different niche: post-Alanis, post-grunge, just at the start of the US and Canada’s ’00s wave of teen-facing, guitar-driven emo that thought of itself as punk. However, ‘Complicated’ itself is just as poppy as any post-Britters chart hit. Its skater girl-boy accoutrement is a smart and distinctive teen fashion look. Its guitars are as punk as a Robbie Williams record. Snark is the factory setting of any teenager, anywhere, ever. Most of all, that humungous chorus is a pop move. Pop isn’t a bad word, and neither is Britney. Anti-Britney? At a stretch, alt-Britney.
Okay, ‘Complicated’ isn’t trying to push the sonic envelope or appeal to the pure-pop hipster. But Lavigne and her collaborators, a putative Canadian Cheiron-Xenomania writer-producer team called The Matrix, have the smarts to craft a solid pop anthem: keep the verses and pre-choruses tipping along breezily, trust in the big chorus, give the punter something to sing along and wave along to. The ’00s emo isn’t my thing, and a decade later a different young Canadian woman will come along with an even more humungous chorus and a genuine pop masterpiece, but for those who want it or even just overhear it, ‘Complicated’ is perfectly alright: simple as that.
