Though her powers may be mighty enough to toast a legion of Kree warheads with a single flick of the wrist, Captain Marvel does not — at least to our casual geek knowledge — possess the powers of time travel.
So instead, allow us to transport you back to the year 2005, when Brie Larson — the star of Marvel’s first ever female-led standalone superhero blockbuster — had just launched a fledgeling career as a pop-punk singer.
That’s right, before she donned Carol Danvers’ shiny rubber suit or picked up a Best Actress Oscar for her role in 2015’s Room, Larson was a wannabe pop-punk princess.
Signed to Casablanca Records by Mariah Carey’s star-making ex-husband Tommy Mottola, her only labelmate was a then-teen icon, Lindsay Lohan.
Finally Out of P.E. was the name of her debut album, a collection of poppy collabs with heavyweight songwriters the likes of Pam Sheyne (Christina Aguilera’s ‘Genie in a Bottle’) and Lindy Robbins (Demi Lovato’s ‘Skyscraper’), which nonetheless never quite made bank.
Lead single ‘She Said’ sounded a bit like a whinier Michelle Branch and portrayed the future Academy Award winner as an Avril Lavigne-esque rebel girl nextdoor type, working a shitty job at a fast-food joint where she had to serve the dreaded popular girls and a Napoleon Dynamite lookalike before deciding “bugger it I’m off to rock out on my electric guitar”.
By 2019 standards it’s an absolute cringefest, but definitely worth a watch and a listen, if only to remind ourselves that even future Oscar Winners can make career missteps, and sometimes even the bratty teen flipping burgers down at your local can go on to save the world.
