Avril Lavigne at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre

Grammy-winning Canadian pop/rock singer/songwriter Avril Lavigne became an international star in the 2000s with her punk-influenced pop anthems and anti-starlet image. First appearing in 2002 with the spunky debut single “Complicated,” she touted a skatepunk image that purposely clashed with the polished glamour of mainstream pop. Lavigne, who was 17 at the time, quickly rose to teen idol status, selling several million copies of her debut album, Let Go (the best-selling album by a female artist in 2002), while inspiring a genuine fashion craze with her penchant for tank tops and neckties. As the decade progressed, so did her marketable sound, which took a contemplative turn on the chart-topping sophomore effort Under My Skin before reaching an aggressively upbeat tone for 2007’s The Best Damn Thing. A pair of hit albums later, Lavigne took a three-year hiatus from the spotlight to focus on health issues related to Lyme disease, returning in 2019 with her mature sixth album, Head Above Water. In 2021, she made her debut for Travis Barker‘s DTA label with the pop-punk single “Bite Me” from 2022’s Love Sux.

Born into a devout Christian household in the small town of Napanee, Ontario, Lavigne sharpened her vocal talents in church choirs, local festivals, and county fairs. She began playing guitar and writing songs in her early teens, focusing her early efforts on country music and contributing vocals to several albums by local folk musician Steve Medd. Arista Records caught wind of the singer and brought her aboard at the age of 16, with CEO Antonio “L.A.” Reid personally taking Lavigne under his wing. She quit high school, relocated to Manhattan, and set to work with a handful of prime songwriters and producers, but the partnerships only produced country songs, not the rock music in which Lavigne had become increasingly interested. Arista relented and instead sent Lavigne to Los Angeles, where she fashioned her melodic, edgy debut alongside such writing teams as the Matrix. Released in 2002, Let Go was the polished product, and its four high-charting singles — “Complicated,” “Sk8er Boi,” “I’m with You,” and “Losing Grip” — led the album to multi-platinum status within its second month of release. Lavigne became the youngest female musician ever to have a number one album in the U.K., and she supported the wildly popular LP (which eventually gained eight Grammy nominations) with a tour of Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia.

Compared with the antics of other teen idols of her day, Lavigne was a new kind of superstar, one whose appeal didn’t rely on sexy videos or suggestive music. She further distinguished herself by bypassing the assistance of professional writing teams during the creation of her second album, choosing instead to collaborate with singer/songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, Evanescence‘s Ben Moody, and Evan Taubenfeld (who had previously worked with Lavigne as her touring guitarist). Released in May 2004, Under My Skin was more serious than its predecessor, dealing with such issues as premarital sex (“Don’t Tell Me”), depression (“Nobody’s Home”), and the death of Lavigne’s grandfather (“Slipped Away”). The album debuted at number one in more than ten countries, went platinum within one month, and further established Lavigne as a pop icon. Incidentally, a song that was co-written by Lavigne and ultimately cut from the final track list — “Breakaway” — was later given to Kelly Clarkson, who used it as the title track and lead single for her Grammy-winning sophomore album.

Lavigne married her boyfriend of two years, Sum 41‘s Deryck Whibley, in July 2006, just one month after the animated film Over the Hedge announced her cinematic debut (Lavigne voiced the part of Heather, a hungry opossum). She also appeared in Richard Linklater‘s fictional adaptation of Fast Food Nation, which was released that November. Nevertheless, she spent most of the year working on her third album, enlisting former blink-182 drummer Travis Barker to play drums, and cherry-picking a variety of producers (including her husband) to helm the recording sessions. The Best Damn Thing appeared in April 2007, and its lead single, “Girlfriend,” marked a return to the bratty, spunky punk-pop of her first album. “Girlfriend” soon became the subject of controversy as the ’70s power pop band the Rubinoos sued Lavigne, claiming that her tune reworked their 1979 song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” No amount of bad publicity could hurt the singer, however, as “Girlfriend” became her biggest U.S. single ever and The Best Damn Thing topped album charts worldwide.

Lavigne filed for divorce from Whibley in October of 2009. The dissolution of their union featured heavily on her next album, 2011’s Goodbye Lullaby, which included tracks produced by Whibley.

Lavigne returned to the studio just weeks after the release of Goodbye Lullaby and began work on her fifth album. In 2012, she started working on material with Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger and eventually the pair began dating; she married Kroeger on July 1, 2013. By that point, she had released the platinum-certified “Here’s to Never Growing Up,” the first single from her eponymous fifth album. Released in October, Avril Lavigne featured eight songs co-written by Kroeger, who also duetted with her on the record’s third single, “Let Me Go.”

In early 2015, Lavigne released “Fly,” an empowering ballad written for the Special Olympics World Summer Games. That same month, she also revealed that she had been diagnosed with Lyme disease. Soon after, she separated from Kroeger. For the next few years, as she healed, Lavigne remained out of the public spotlight. In 2018, she returned with the single “Head Above Water,” which was inspired by her battle with Lyme disease; it unexpectedly made the Christian radio Top Ten. Despite this success, the accompanying album, Head Above Water — which appeared in February 2019 — was a secular pop album, albeit one with an inspirational bent. While it was her worst-charting long-player to that point, it still reached Canada’s Top Five, the U.K. Top Ten, and number 13 on the Billboard 200.

After re-recording Head Above Water‘s “Warrior” as “We Are Warriors” to raise funds for pandemic relief efforts in 2020, Lavigne returned to the studio to record her seventh album with producers including Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, Mod Sun, and Goldfinger‘s John Feldmann. In the meantime, she was featured on the Mod Sun single “Flames” in early 2021, and with Barker on Willow Smith‘s “Grow” mid-year before signing with Barker‘s Elektra Music Group imprint, DTA Records. Her own single, “Bite Me,” appeared before the end of 2021. That punk-infused anthem landed on her seventh full-length, 2022’s Love Sux, which also featured “Love It When You Hate Me” with Blackbear and “I’m a Mess” with Yungblud. The album hit number three in Canada and cracked the Top Ten of the Billboard 200.

Formed in 2003 in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, All Time Low started out as a high school cover band before morphing into a melodic pop-punk act influenced by predecessors like New Found Glory and blink-182. An enduring presence in the late-2000s scene, they were a Warped Tour mainstay from their breakthrough sophomore set, So Wrong, It’s Right (2007), to their chart-peaking sixth LP Future Hearts (2015). Following a late-career dip into pop with 2017’s Last Young Renegade, they returned to their pop-punk roots in the early 2020s with Wake Up, Sunshine and Tell Me I’m Alive.

Singer/guitarist Alex Gaskarth and guitarist Jack Barakat were All Time Low’s co-founders, with bassist Zack Merrick and drummer Rian Dawson rounding out their energetic pop-punk sound and rowdy live shows, which often included silly string and beach balls. Honing their skills between homework and other teenage commitments, the guys managed to tour across the East Coast and the South during school breaks. They issued a four-song EP, 2004’s The Three Words to Remember in Dealing with the End, with help from local label Emerald Moon, and followed its release with a full-length album, The Party Scene, one year later.

Touring across the country that summer, the guys found themselves on bills with similar acts like Motion City Soundtrack, the Early November, and Plain White T’s. Along the way, All Time Low also bumped into fellow pop-punkers Amber Pacific, who brought the young band to the attention of their label, Hopeless Records. The label was immediately impressed, and All Time Low had officially become part of the Hopeless family by March 2006, just a few months shy of the members’ high-school graduation. Finally done with schoolwork and able to concentrate full-time on music, the group issued Put Up or Shut Up — a seven-song EP that mostly featured new recordings of older material — that July.

All Time Low supported the EP’s release with a handful of Warped Tour dates before hitting the road again with Amber Pacific. So Wrong, It’s Right appeared in 2007, marking the band’s first full-length release for Hopeless. After being named 2008’s Band of the Year by Alternative Press, All Time Low returned with their second album, Nothing Personal, in July 2009. Debuting at number four on the Billboard charts, Nothing Personal helped make All Time Low one of the top emo-pop acts in the business. Two CD/DVD packages, MTV Unplugged and Straight to DVD, were released the following year, tiding fans over while the guys returned to the studio to begin work on their major-label debut for Interscope Records.

Dirty Work, featuring the single “I Feel Like Dancin’,” was released in 2011. The album reached number six on the Billboard charts the week it was released, and the band hit the road. In 2012, All Time Low announced they had parted ways with Interscope and released a new song, “The Reckless and the Brave,” on their website in June. Soon after, they re-signed with Hopeless and began work on a new album. Don’t Panic was released in November 2012, then reissued almost a year later with four newly recorded songs and four acoustic versions under the name Don’t Panic: It’s Longer Now! In 2015, All Time Low returned with their sixth record, Future Hearts, which found them reuniting with their Dirty Work producer, John Feldmann. In 2016, they released Straight to DVD 2: Past, Present & Future, a sequel to the 2010 live album. In February 2017, All Time Low issued the single “Dirty Laundry” in anticipation of their seventh studio long-player, Last Young Renegade, that arrived in June of that year. Renegade was their first effort issued on Fueled by Ramen and featured the singles “Nice2KnoU” and the pop-focused “Life of the Party.” Their fifth consecutive Top Ten record, the set’s unabashed pop polish proved divisive and, after the era came to a close, the band got to work on a course-correcting follow-up.

In 2018, the summery and anthemic one-off single “Everything Is Fine” offered a taste of things to come with album number eight, which landed in early 2020. Wake Up, Sunshine saw All Time Low returning to their pop-punk roots after a brief pop foray on 2017’s Renegade. Featuring appearances by blackbear and the Band Camino, the upbeat LP reached number on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart, buoyed by singles like “Some Kind of Disaster” and “Monster,” the latter of which was re-released in December 2020 with guest vocals from Demi Lovato. The following year saw the band team up with English indie rockers Pale Waves for the single “PMA” before returning with 2022’s “Sleepwalking.” That pop-leaning track appeared on their ninth album, 2023’s Tell Me I’m Alive. Later that year, the band teamed up with Avril Lavigne on the fiery standalone single “Fake as Hell.” ~ Corey Apar

Royal & the Serpent’s dramatic alt-electro-pop is the brainchild of Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter Ryan Santiago. She introduced her assertive sound and distinctively girlish yet bluesy voice with the single “Temperance” in 2017. The project reached the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart with “Overwhelmed” from her debut EP Get a Grip in 2020. A featured spot on the Knocks‘ “Sound the Alarm” beside Rivers Cuomo resulted in an appearance on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart the following year. Royal & the Serpent’s third EP, IF I DIED WOULD ANYONE CARE, saw release in 2022.

With inspirations spanning big band, early rock & roll, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Nicks, the New Jersey native established Royal & the Serpent after settling in Los Angeles to work on developing her sound. She ultimately recorded her first single, 2017’s “Temperance,” with producer Ken Nana of MIKNNA. In 2018, she co-wrote and was featured on “Wicked” by producer Tommee Profitt, a spooky, theatrical track that was used for the trailer for the crime film The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Royal & the Serpent returned with the single “Together” in early 2019 before signing with Suicide Squeeze, which issued “Weddings & Funerals” that April. That year, she also delivered a pair of singles (“Salvador Dali” and “IDK”) in collaboration with Marky Style.

Royal & the Serpent’s June 2020 Atlantic Records debut, “Overwhelmed,” reached number 20 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and she released the corresponding debut EP, Get a Grip, in October. Another EP, Searching for Nirvana, followed in June 2021. A month later, Royal & the Serpent was featured alongside Rivers Cuomo on the Knocks track “Sound the Alarm.” It landed in the Top 30 of Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Confrontational Royal & the Serpent single “PHUCKBOI REJECTS” and her third EP, IF I DIED WOULD ANYONE CARE, followed on Atlantic in early 2022. Another single, “Better,” followed off the EP. Also that year, she paired with GG Magree for the emotionally raw, punk-infused single “Bitch.”