Let Go by Avril Lavigne

Let Go, Avril Lavigne's debut, came out on Arista Records on 4 June 2002, from a Canadian teenager who had signed to the label at 16. With a production crew that included The Matrix, Clif Magness, Curtis Frasca, Peter Zizzo and L.A. Reid, it's pop-punk and alternative rock with a grungy crunch under the gloss, and Lavigne sings like the kid at the back of the class who's already over it.

"Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi" sold her skate-punk persona to the world, and the numbers got ridiculous: more than 16 million copies worldwide, 7× Platinum in the US, diamond in Canada, a number-one album in the UK that made her the youngest female solo artist to get there, and eight Grammy nominations, Best New Artist among them. No Canadian artist has sold more copies of an album this century, and the record is credited with helping drag pop-punk into the mainstream and away from the era's bubblegum.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.