Lavigne wrote most of her second album, Under My Skin, with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk. She describes her first album as a pop album with 'a couple of rock songs on it,' and has indicated a desire to write more rock-oriented songs in the future. Lavigne had a close friendship with Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 and hired a former member of that band Mark Spicoluk as a member of her backing band. In another interview, she listed her current listening tastes as including Blink 182, Sum 41, and System of a Down. While her marketing has been every bit as sophisticated as, for instance, that of Britney Spears and her competitors, a profile in the Washington Post found that in the flesh, her personality reflected the marketing and found her, if anything, something of a wide-eyed innocent, citing the fact that she was intending to purchase her first Ramones CD.
She has also often been compared with singers like Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch, who emerged at about the same time and were popularly credited, with Lavigne, as part of a trend towards more earnestness and genuine creativity in an often vacuous and pre-fabricated teen pop music market. The media has often compared her to Alanis Morissette, though she has been criticized for not being as strong a lyricist as Morissette at the same age. Weird Al Yankovic did a parody of 'Complicated' on his Poodle Hat album-a sure sign of her impact on popular culture.
Apparently, early attempts to co-write songs for her failed to meet her approval, and she eventually moved to Los Angeles, California and co-wrote her album with Clif Magness and songwriting team The Matrix, whose previous work included songs for Sheena Easton and Christina Aguilera.