Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Because Lavigne has been positioned as a singer-songwriter, the issue of "written with" takes on a certain significance. Moreover, the Matrix team -- Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards and Scott Spock -- describe the collaboration differently than she does. Though the publishing royalties get split evenly among Christy, Edwards, Spock and Lavigne, Avril implies that she was the primary author of the songs on Let Go. She says that when she was working with the Matrix, "one guy was in the room while we were writing, but he didn't write the guitar, and he didn't write the lyrics or the melody. Me and Lauren sat down and did all the lyrics together for every single song. Graham would come up with some guitar stuff, and I'd be like, 'Yeah, I like that,' or 'No, I don't like that.' None of those songs aren't from me.

"When I wrote ['Complicated']," she says, "I was feeling what the song talks about -- that there are tons of people in the world who are fake, who are two-faced." And when I ask her how long it took her to write that song, she says simply, "Maybe two hours," without equivocation. "Songwriting is like that for me," she adds, with a snap of her fingers. "Someone can say, 'Go write a song,' and I can do it. I can write a song a day."

But according to the Matrix, they wrote the bulk of the three hit singles by themselves, following their first meeting with Lavigne. "With those songs, we conceived the ideas on guitar and piano," says Christy. "Avril would come in and sing a few melodies, change a word here or there. She came up with a couple of things in 'Complicated,' like, instead of 'Take off your stupid clothes,' she wanted it to say 'preppy clothes.' "

A week later, I see Lavigne again, in New York. She seems annoyed when I tell her that I'm confused about how the collaborations worked. "I knew in my heart that I needed to be more pop to break," she says, staring down at the untied shoelaces of her black Converse All Stars. She says that the harder-rocking songs on Let Go -- specifically "Losing Grip" and "Unwanted" -- had the sound she wanted for the whole album. Those tracks were co-written with Clif Magness, who gave her enough creative control that she was able to pen "every single lyric and the melodies." She says the label wasn't thrilled by the heavy guitar sound, and that's when it hooked her up with the Matrix.

"Arista was drop-dead shit afraid that I would come out with a whole album that sounded like 'Unwanted' and 'Losing Grip,' " she says. "I swear they wanted to drop me or something. I don't feel like 'Complicated' represents me and my ability to write. But without 'Complicated,' I bet you anything I wouldn't have even sold a million records. The songs I did with the Matrix, yeah, they were good for my first record, but I don't want to be that pop anymore."

L.A. Reid glosses over the issue of who wrote what by saying, "If I'm looking for a single for an artist, I don't care who writes it. I don't place boundaries on writers. Avril had the freedom to do as she really pleased, and the songs show her point of view. Why would it be a discredit to her if she is savvy enough to understand when a song is a hit and decide to sing it? Avril has always been confident about her ideas."

That confidence has helped Lavigne assert herself where other young artists might not. When Reid suggested she call the album Anything but Ordinary -- after another of the Matrix's tracks -- Lavigne balked. She also pushed for the gloomy "Losing Grip" as her next single over the bright-and-bouncy "Anything but Ordinary." "The main thing is, you gotta work with the artist," she says. "A lot of people didn't want to listen to me, but I spoke up until they did. And I can always say, 'Screw you guys if you're not gonna work with me.' If they're not gonna listen to me, I'm not gonna do things. Try and make me -- I'm not gonna."