May 29, 2025 • 14 mins
Avril Lavigne released her first new song in a couple of years, and it features her old skate park pals Simple Plan.
Like a siren calling out to millennials, "Young and Dumb" might be enough to get the attention of aging emos, but does it have anything more to offer than nostalgia? And is Avril too young to be making these types of songs?
Tell us about your first listen via Instagram @AtFirstListenPodcast!
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Like a siren calling out to millennials, "Young and Dumb" might be enough to get the attention of aging emos, but does it have anything more to offer than nostalgia? And is Avril too young to be making these types of songs?
Tell us about your first listen via Instagram @AtFirstListenPodcast!
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today on this mini episode,
we're talking about a very challenging pair of artists, Avril
Levine and I just double checked Simple Plan.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Simple Plan.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So as we were preparing to start recording, both Dominique
and I kept mistaking the name of the featured artist
on this Avril Levine song, Avril Levine. We got we
know that it's her song from her album, But is
the featured artist some forty one something corporate corporate, which
(00:54):
you kept saying yes, or is it the actual band
Simple Plan, which it is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I when I saw this come up on my recommended
new Releases, I was like, I gotta listen to this.
What do they have in store for me? They're making
something for the fans.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, this is such a fan servicey like remember the
mid two thousands. Yeah, she she mentions two thousand and
two in the first verse, remember it, and then she
refers to her look from her iconic look from the
(01:36):
skater Boy video with the necktie. It's not a very
good song. It's very cute, though. I definitely give them
that and also Avril Evine and Simple Plan toward in
the summer of two thousand and two. Yeah, started in
two thousand and two December and ended in two thousand
(01:58):
and three. It was the try to shut me up tour.
Just try and you're not going to be able to.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Out because they knew everything. Yeah, as a little disappointed.
I don't know what I expected. I honestly think if
they were talking about anything that feels like it's something
new and not just nostalgia only, like I think I'd
be okay if it sounded like this, But just tell
me some more about your love problems that you used
(02:27):
to talk about. I don't need to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I married another Canadian rock star and it's not working out.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I want to hear about that. I don't want to
hear about your outfit from two thousand and two. I
already know it. To me, it sounds like they put
the old music into a AI and they were like,
make us a new song.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And this is what is so aggravating to people like
me about pop punk is it gets to this point
like where we're at with this. So I don't know
if we named the song it's called Young, Young, and Dumb,
where it just sounds so incredibly safe and cookie cutter,
like there's actually nothing even remotely punk about it. And
(03:12):
I said before we started recording that I feel like
Avril Levine is too young to be making this music
that is so focused on nostalgia. So, Dominique, do you
have a guess as to how old Avril Levine is?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Forty two?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
She's forty forty and shares a birthday with me? What
congrats September twenty seventh, Libra.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Wow, that's cute, So maybe you can you can identify
with her more because of that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, this actually changes everything. You should have
looked at the date of her birth, yeah, and thought
more critically about what she might be going through.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
We need to know her birth time though, that's the
real That's what will tell us.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I love Avrol. She's a polarizing artist, you know. Ever
since let Go, I feel like everything she came out
with people were like, eh, it kind of sucks, and
I liked it. There was the hard Jukufase not great,
that was racist vibes and we didn't like that. But
then there was like a lot of music about never
(04:24):
growing up and loving to party and being young, and
that kind of kept going. And now she's like, she's
not saying that she did grow up. So they're kind
of saying that they're still not grown up back when
they were young and dumb, but they're still cause they
talk about like trashing hotel rooms and stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But like, you're only forty. It's not like you're not young.
I mean you're still you still got.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It, right, I mean, yeah, totally. No. I just think
that there's a difference between being young. Like I know,
when I was like eighteen, I really did think I
knew everything. You could not tell me anything. I would
do dumb stuff, like, for example, ride on roller skates
(05:10):
that I wasn't good at down a hill and then
I got hurt and somebody was like, don't do that.
You can't ride roller skates. You don't know how, and
I'm like, get up, and then I was right. You
know that sort of thing where you think you're invincible,
and you know, when you get into your thirties you realize, ah,
my back hurts, you know, I'm tired. I actually definitely
(05:35):
didn't know everything back then, and I now know that
I definitely don't know everything. I feel like that's what
your thirties and forties are about. So I think in
that way identify with like when I was young, I'm
still young, but like that was like I was a
kid with a grown up body. She looks very young,
lots of botox and facelifts and stuff. The guys in
(05:55):
simple plan if they were like I'm in high school,
like if they like doing.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
A music, they all look like, you know, guys in
their mid forties. Yeah they look fine. They don't good
at all, no, but yeah, I mean, Avril still looks
like she is in her twenties. She has a bit
of a babyface, whether it's botox or cosmetic surgery or
makeup assist or not. And then she's just doing the
song where it's like remember you liked it then, right, yeah,
(06:25):
remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And it's just not me, man, amen, man me me
me me me man, I just don't it's just not
giving me anything. Like there's no real melody, there's not
real great singing, like she's a great singer. Where's that.
I'm hoping this is some sort of fundraiser for lime disease.
Maybe somebody in the band ows the irs money, because
(06:50):
I don't be.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Better if it was a fundraiser for the I R
S or for Lime's disease.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I both are permitted as long as it's not we
have a good song that's good that we everyone should like.
Cause the thing is, it's like I think it's like
when artists like they've never collabed before on a song,
they've toured together and they haven't come out with new
music and forever, and so when you're back after twenty
(07:20):
years and you're collabing, it's like Avril Levine, we love,
we have great memories of her simple plan. We love,
we have great memories, and then you come back with
something that's worse than anything you ever did. It's like,
wah wah, it's not. It kind of makes you want
to listen to the old music, but it kind of
makes me like it a little bit less. I think
(07:42):
if it was like just Avril and she came out
with a mediocre album, I'd be like, hey, you're coming
out with music fine. You know, as artists, as people,
as a society, we think, you know, you move forward.
You're always like on this upward expansion, moving forward with something.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Better, better, Especially as an artist. That's what you're trying
to do all the time get better. There's so many
artists that are like, oh, I don't ever listen to
my music after it comes.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Out exactly you want it to get better and better.
Maybe you changed, Maybe you're like, I can't do anything better,
like Andre three thousand. So you go and you change
genres completely and you change kind of careers completely, like
because you know you're not going to come out with
anything better than you already did. But uh yeah, like Andrea,
I think that is a myth. I think sometimes like
(08:33):
you made something that was perfect at the time doesn't
necessarily mean that you are that type of artist that's
gonna keep coming up with new ideas that are gonna
be hits and groundbreaking for the time. Maybe you just
were that perfect person for that perfect time. You had
the perfect sound and look for that moment, and you
(08:56):
don't really have much else. But you are cute and rich.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
But also the consider the quality. And I'm not a
huge Avril Lavine fan at all, but like, she has
some songs that are way better than this girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Oh complicated, amazing skater boy. Of course everything I'm let
go is great, and then girlfriend was great. That's the thing.
But that and that was but that was that certain time.
You know, I was having high school, middle school like
(09:37):
love drama, crushes and things. When that came out, I
related to that. Now I'm an adult and I'm not saying, hey, hey,
you you I don't like your girlfriend about people. I
think even then it was I was a little on
the fence about it. This is just kind of seems
like she's kind of saying, like, I don't have anything
(09:57):
else to offer, is.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
All I got. Yeah. So her tour is called the
Greatest Hits Tour So Again, and she's playing tonight, and
she's playing Tomorrow night and Friday night, all in the one.
Tonight as we're recording, this is in Saratoga, but on
(10:20):
Friday it's here in New York at the Garden, and
I think all Time Low is playing with her. It's
a bunch of obviously mid two thousand's pop punk emo
on the tour.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I mean, I would throw down so hard. That is
also super Now thinking of it that way, I'm like, Okay,
that's also really smart. Nobody wants to hear Avril's new
songs play the hits.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Oh simple plan is on the is on the show's
on this leg of the tour.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I mean, if Avril just played every song of let
Go and Girlfriend, I would cry.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I wonder if she's gonna play this horrible song? Is
it worth the trouble of getting simple plan all of
them onto the stage to play young and dumb at Madison.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Square guard Maybe it's better live, Okay, maybe there are
some certain elder millennials who will really really identify with this, and.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
The millennials are really bumming me out. Yeah, they're making
a lot of bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It's true, me, it's true, but that's our right.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like calling the Killers, lumping the Killers in as an
emo band crime total crime to me, you can talk about.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, that's a bigger topic. That's a bigger topic. I
think you know, maybe your prejudice against emo music is
potentially coloring that opinion.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
But yeah, I would say it is. But that doesn't
mean that I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's true, you're possibly right, but that was our first Listen, Avril,
if you hear this, I want you to know I
still love you, I still care about you, and I
believe that you should give me tickets to your concert
because I would dance anyone else, So.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is the part of the show where we take
off our punk neck ties and solidarity and.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
We put on our a few belts, a few studded.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Belts, just a few.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The bracelets were going crazy back then. That's all I'll say.
Tell us how you feel about about the early two
thousand's pop punk revival. Are you into it? Let us
know what at first? Listen podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Maybe Young and Dumb is the start of it, or
more likely the end of it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, if you are currently a youth who was not
alive during this time, do you think it's exciting? Do
you like hearing about it? Are you like the way
a vintage cute? Probably not?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Maybe? Do you like what people sing like this? SpongeBob
didn't do it first, No, he didn't. There was a
guy from a band called Simple Plan and he sang
like that, and also a guy from a band called
Some forty one who sang exactly the same way, and
(13:28):
something who were pretty and they all started all time.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Well and.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
All right, we'll be back next time. Thanks for ding
(14:00):
who Your Love Is Kill
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today on this mini episode,
we're talking about a very challenging pair of artists, Avril
Levine and I just double checked Simple Plan.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Simple Plan.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So as we were preparing to start recording, both Dominique
and I kept mistaking the name of the featured artist
on this Avril Levine song, Avril Levine. We got we
know that it's her song from her album, But is
the featured artist some forty one something corporate corporate, which
(00:54):
you kept saying yes, or is it the actual band
Simple Plan, which it is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I when I saw this come up on my recommended
new Releases, I was like, I gotta listen to this.
What do they have in store for me? They're making
something for the fans.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, this is such a fan servicey like remember the
mid two thousands. Yeah, she she mentions two thousand and
two in the first verse, remember it, and then she
refers to her look from her iconic look from the
(01:36):
skater Boy video with the necktie. It's not a very
good song. It's very cute, though. I definitely give them
that and also Avril Evine and Simple Plan toward in
the summer of two thousand and two. Yeah, started in
two thousand and two December and ended in two thousand
(01:58):
and three. It was the try to shut me up tour.
Just try and you're not going to be able to.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Out because they knew everything. Yeah, as a little disappointed.
I don't know what I expected. I honestly think if
they were talking about anything that feels like it's something
new and not just nostalgia only, like I think I'd
be okay if it sounded like this, But just tell
me some more about your love problems that you used
(02:27):
to talk about. I don't need to hear about that.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I married another Canadian rock star and it's not working out.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I want to hear about that. I don't want to
hear about your outfit from two thousand and two. I
already know it. To me, it sounds like they put
the old music into a AI and they were like,
make us a new song.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And this is what is so aggravating to people like
me about pop punk is it gets to this point
like where we're at with this. So I don't know
if we named the song it's called Young, Young, and Dumb,
where it just sounds so incredibly safe and cookie cutter,
like there's actually nothing even remotely punk about it. And
(03:12):
I said before we started recording that I feel like
Avril Levine is too young to be making this music
that is so focused on nostalgia. So, Dominique, do you
have a guess as to how old Avril Levine is?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Forty two?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
She's forty forty and shares a birthday with me? What
congrats September twenty seventh, Libra.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Wow, that's cute, So maybe you can you can identify
with her more because of that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, this actually changes everything. You should have
looked at the date of her birth, yeah, and thought
more critically about what she might be going through.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
We need to know her birth time though, that's the
real That's what will tell us.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I love Avrol. She's a polarizing artist, you know. Ever
since let Go, I feel like everything she came out
with people were like, eh, it kind of sucks, and
I liked it. There was the hard Jukufase not great,
that was racist vibes and we didn't like that. But
then there was like a lot of music about never
(04:24):
growing up and loving to party and being young, and
that kind of kept going. And now she's like, she's
not saying that she did grow up. So they're kind
of saying that they're still not grown up back when
they were young and dumb, but they're still cause they
talk about like trashing hotel rooms and stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But like, you're only forty. It's not like you're not young.
I mean you're still you still got.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It, right, I mean, yeah, totally. No. I just think
that there's a difference between being young. Like I know,
when I was like eighteen, I really did think I
knew everything. You could not tell me anything. I would
do dumb stuff, like, for example, ride on roller skates
(05:10):
that I wasn't good at down a hill and then
I got hurt and somebody was like, don't do that.
You can't ride roller skates. You don't know how, and
I'm like, get up, and then I was right. You
know that sort of thing where you think you're invincible,
and you know, when you get into your thirties you realize, ah,
my back hurts, you know, I'm tired. I actually definitely
(05:35):
didn't know everything back then, and I now know that
I definitely don't know everything. I feel like that's what
your thirties and forties are about. So I think in
that way identify with like when I was young, I'm
still young, but like that was like I was a
kid with a grown up body. She looks very young,
lots of botox and facelifts and stuff. The guys in
(05:55):
simple plan if they were like I'm in high school,
like if they like doing.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
A music, they all look like, you know, guys in
their mid forties. Yeah they look fine. They don't good
at all, no, but yeah, I mean, Avril still looks
like she is in her twenties. She has a bit
of a babyface, whether it's botox or cosmetic surgery or
makeup assist or not. And then she's just doing the
song where it's like remember you liked it then, right, yeah,
(06:25):
remember that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And it's just not me, man, amen, man me me
me me me man, I just don't it's just not
giving me anything. Like there's no real melody, there's not
real great singing, like she's a great singer. Where's that.
I'm hoping this is some sort of fundraiser for lime disease.
Maybe somebody in the band ows the irs money, because
(06:50):
I don't be.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Better if it was a fundraiser for the I R
S or for Lime's disease.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I both are permitted as long as it's not we
have a good song that's good that we everyone should like.
Cause the thing is, it's like I think it's like
when artists like they've never collabed before on a song,
they've toured together and they haven't come out with new
music and forever, and so when you're back after twenty
(07:20):
years and you're collabing, it's like Avril Levine, we love,
we have great memories of her simple plan. We love,
we have great memories, and then you come back with
something that's worse than anything you ever did. It's like,
wah wah, it's not. It kind of makes you want
to listen to the old music, but it kind of
makes me like it a little bit less. I think
(07:42):
if it was like just Avril and she came out
with a mediocre album, I'd be like, hey, you're coming
out with music fine. You know, as artists, as people,
as a society, we think, you know, you move forward.
You're always like on this upward expansion, moving forward with something.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Better, better, Especially as an artist. That's what you're trying
to do all the time get better. There's so many
artists that are like, oh, I don't ever listen to
my music after it comes.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Out exactly you want it to get better and better.
Maybe you changed, Maybe you're like, I can't do anything better,
like Andre three thousand. So you go and you change
genres completely and you change kind of careers completely, like
because you know you're not going to come out with
anything better than you already did. But uh yeah, like Andrea,
I think that is a myth. I think sometimes like
(08:33):
you made something that was perfect at the time doesn't
necessarily mean that you are that type of artist that's
gonna keep coming up with new ideas that are gonna
be hits and groundbreaking for the time. Maybe you just
were that perfect person for that perfect time. You had
the perfect sound and look for that moment, and you
(08:56):
don't really have much else. But you are cute and rich.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
But also the consider the quality. And I'm not a
huge Avril Lavine fan at all, but like, she has
some songs that are way better than this girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Oh complicated, amazing skater boy. Of course everything I'm let
go is great, and then girlfriend was great. That's the thing.
But that and that was but that was that certain time.
You know, I was having high school, middle school like
(09:37):
love drama, crushes and things. When that came out, I
related to that. Now I'm an adult and I'm not saying, hey, hey,
you you I don't like your girlfriend about people. I
think even then it was I was a little on
the fence about it. This is just kind of seems
like she's kind of saying, like, I don't have anything
(09:57):
else to offer, is.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
All I got. Yeah. So her tour is called the
Greatest Hits Tour So Again, and she's playing tonight, and
she's playing Tomorrow night and Friday night, all in the one.
Tonight as we're recording, this is in Saratoga, but on
(10:20):
Friday it's here in New York at the Garden, and
I think all Time Low is playing with her. It's
a bunch of obviously mid two thousand's pop punk emo
on the tour.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I mean, I would throw down so hard. That is
also super Now thinking of it that way, I'm like, Okay,
that's also really smart. Nobody wants to hear Avril's new
songs play the hits.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Oh simple plan is on the is on the show's
on this leg of the tour.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I mean, if Avril just played every song of let
Go and Girlfriend, I would cry.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I wonder if she's gonna play this horrible song? Is
it worth the trouble of getting simple plan all of
them onto the stage to play young and dumb at Madison.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Square guard Maybe it's better live, Okay, maybe there are
some certain elder millennials who will really really identify with this, and.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
The millennials are really bumming me out. Yeah, they're making
a lot of bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It's true, me, it's true, but that's our right.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like calling the Killers, lumping the Killers in as an
emo band crime total crime to me, you can talk about.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, that's a bigger topic. That's a bigger topic. I
think you know, maybe your prejudice against emo music is
potentially coloring that opinion.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
But yeah, I would say it is. But that doesn't
mean that I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's true, you're possibly right, but that was our first Listen, Avril,
if you hear this, I want you to know I
still love you, I still care about you, and I
believe that you should give me tickets to your concert
because I would dance anyone else, So.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is the part of the show where we take
off our punk neck ties and solidarity and.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
We put on our a few belts, a few studded.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Belts, just a few.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The bracelets were going crazy back then. That's all I'll say.
Tell us how you feel about about the early two
thousand's pop punk revival. Are you into it? Let us
know what at first? Listen podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Maybe Young and Dumb is the start of it, or
more likely the end of it.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, if you are currently a youth who was not
alive during this time, do you think it's exciting? Do
you like hearing about it? Are you like the way
a vintage cute? Probably not?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Maybe? Do you like what people sing like this? SpongeBob
didn't do it first, No, he didn't. There was a
guy from a band called Simple Plan and he sang
like that, and also a guy from a band called
Some forty one who sang exactly the same way, and
(13:28):
something who were pretty and they all started all time.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Well and.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
All right, we'll be back next time. Thanks for ding
(14:00):
who Your Love Is Kill
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