Album Review: Avril Lavigne – Avril Lavigne
By looking at her, you wouldn’t think that Avril Lavigne released her debut album, Let Go, over 10 years ago. Since then she has gone on to release four studio albums, which has pretty much cemented hers as part of pop’s furniture.
What a lot of people don’t know is that things behind the scenes have not always been great for Avril. She has suffered from the dreaded label interference, meaning she hasn’t always released the music that she wants to release. 2011’s Goodbye Lullaby took over two and half years to complete, with Avril citing her label as the reason for its multiple delays.
From listening to the first three tracks from her new, eponymous fifth album, it would be easy to assume that not much has changed. Opener, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (which is easily accompanied by one of the best music videos of this year), is typical Avril power-pop, complete with shouty verses and call-and-response moments.
Similarly, ‘Here’s to Never Growing Up’ and ‘17’ firmly support Avril’s perpetual “fuck-you-I’m-an-eternal-teenager” image. Nonetheless, these songs are such well-crafted pop, so well produced, and so typically Avril that their charm is palpable.
Sadly, like most Avril albums, there are moments of misdirection. ‘Hello Kitty’ is a weird hybrid of pop-step and pop-rock that just doesn’t work, and ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet’ doesn’t offer anything new and would slot anywhere in Avril’s decade-long career.
The worst of these is emoshe power ballad ‘Let Me Go’, featuring her new hubby Chad Kroeger. It’s a sordid peep into their conjugal life that no one needs to hear, or in fact see.
However, this is not to say that Kroeger’s influence is all-bad. In fact, one of the better moments comes in the form of ‘Give You What You Like’. Avril’s vocals have a unique quality that she really plays upon, as soft percussion and an acoustic guitar compliment this slightly sombre paradoxical love song. It is Avril at her most mature and vulnerable. The result is magnificent.
The latter part of the album follows this grown disposition. ‘Hello Heartache’ features an infectious chorus of “la las”, and despite some dodgy pronunciation, it shows Avril’s obvious song writing ability. On ‘Falling Fast’, meanwhile, she takes us back to the sort of soft-rock-female-singer-songwriter stuff mostly found on soundtracks to Dawson’s Creek.
Avril Lavigne is probably Avril’s strongest record since her debut. She has evidently found a happy medium between her enduring teenage-hood and the adult life that follows. There are moments that are more akin to Lisa Loeb or Mazzy Star than, say, Taylor Momsen. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be an Avril Lavigne album if I couldn’t dust off my old DC trainers and throw a tie over a wife-beater.
And anyway, aren’t we all still teenagers, really?
– Alim Kheraj
