Sometimes referred to as ‘Let Go B-Sides’, depending on who you ask, this is either 1) a limited release promotional album put out in December of 2001 before her official debut with Let Go; or 2) a leaked demo tape that was used to preview Avril’s music between industry insiders before said debut. But, whatever its origins, this “album” features a lot of different and/or “unreleased” material. Some of the tracks serve as alternate versions of songs that would appear later in her discography, others were used as B-Sides to singles or on movie soundtracks, but most (11 of the 17 songs) were originals that never made it past this stage of production.
The 6 songs that did later get a proper release are I Don’t Give, Why, Get Over It, Take Me Away, Falling Down, and Things I’ll Never Say. The version of I Don’t Give on this album is an explicit one that was later “cleaned up” and used as a B-Side on her Complicated single, but this original version would also get its own official release later as part of the soundtrack to the movie American Wedding. Why was also sometimes used as a B-Side for the Complicated single and was the only B-Side included on her first live album, which makes sense as it’s an acoustic song. This album’s version of Get Over It, meanwhile, shared a similar fate to I Don’t Give - except, rather than being explicit, it was more… let’s say “direct” and reminds me of how Chic’s Freak Out was originally called Fuck Off. A more “refined” version would appear on her Sk8er Boi single as a B-Side.
Take Me Away, which fans will recognize as a song from the Under My Skin album, first appeared here in a very different manner. This album’s version, while similar in the chorus, sounds like two completely different tracks mashed together. Things I’ll Never Say (Matrix), on the other hand, is basically the same song that appears on the Let Go album proper, just with the music tweaked (Matrix here refers to a production team she was working with at the time). And, finally, while Falling Down never got released on an Avril album, it was included as part of the Sweet Home Alabama movie soundtrack.
But, as interesting as it is to here demo versions of songs, it’s the other 11 unused tracks that make this “album” unique. Released or leaked, it’s always fascinating (to me anyways) to see what artist’s work on that never makes the final cut. Headset, for example, wouldn’t be out of place mixed in with the summery pop songs on her self-titled fifth album, but that’s also probably why it was cut here. Likewise, Falling Into History, Tomorrow You Didn’t, Once and For Real, Not the Only One, Stay - Be The One, Move You Little Self On, and Let Go are all good tracks that could’ve easily been polished up and used on an album but weren’t for whatever reason.
On the other hand, there are also songs here that you can see (or hear, in this case) why they were dropped. You Never Satisfy Me is a perfect example of a similar song to the Take Me Away mentioned above that did not get a reworking into a more cohesive song. With Make-Up, though good song, it doesn’t really fit with the “image” they were pushing during her earlier years - aka a song about how she is comfortable in her skin and not wearing makeup doesn’t really work when her image was an angsty teen in a lot of makeup. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it very likely better describes her at that time, but corporate gonna corporate. Lastly, while All You Will Never Know is a really good song, it’s just much more of a country sounding song than anything pop-rock - like, I can easily see this as a Carrie Underwood song, you know?
Wrapping up, my personal favorites are Falling Into History (easily the best), I Don’t Give, Why, Get Over It, Falling Down, Tomorrow You Didn’t, All You Will Never Know, Stay - Be the One, and Move You Little Self On - Things I'll Never Say would technically go in here too, but I like the other version better. Headset and Once And For Real would follow them, with Make-Up, Not the Only One, and Let Go falling at the bottom of my likes list. You Never Satisfy Me and Take Me Away were the only ones I really didn’t take too, but that was largely because they came off as bad mashups to me (her other song titled Take Me Away is far superior to this one, so I’m glad they went with it instead).
Note: As this is a promotional/demo/leaked/whatever album rather than anything official, I just used random images for each song as well as the thumbnail since it’s more interesting than the original text list of songs that came with the album (which you can see in the video).
Track Listing: see comment section!
