Avril Lavigne [Review]

It has only been two years since pop/rock star Avril Lavigne has released an album, 2011's Goodbye Lullaby, which, in my opinion, is a really fantastic album, even though I have heard some negative comments in regards to it. Avril is back with another set of tracks, her self-titled fifth album, and, once again, I am impressed. The only time that I have been disappointed with her (whom I have been loyally following for eleven years since her debut album Let Go was released in 2002) is when I heard her third album, 2007's The Best Damn Thing. The Best Damn Thing has since warmed up to me, but its style still does not appeal to me the way that the style of her other releases do. It is tough to identify the style of Avril Lavigne because it kind of goes back and forth between demonstrating sassy rebel and heartbroken pop princess. I would say, though, that it is a lot more mellow than I had been expecting it to be. I remember reading that it would be a departure from Goodbye Lullaby and be a lot more like The Best Damn Thing, more fun, but with some exceptions (such as "Hello Kitty"), I would disagree with that and say that it is definitely a lot more like Goodbye Lullaby than it is The Best Damn Thing. The Best Damn Thing served, in my opinion, as totally new ground for her, a complete and total departure from the angsty alternative Avril that I had known and loved from the first two albums (Let Go and Under My Skin) and ventured into a new preppy cheerleader Avril. Goodbye Lullaby returned to the alternative only without all of the angst and the edge. I think that this album is a culmination of everything but is less of The Best Damn Thing than I had been expecting, which I honestly really like.

The album opens with the poppy but edgy "Rock N Roll" which was released in August as the album's second single. This song is so much fun and makes me want to go outside and scream the lyrics to the sky. To me, it is lyrically about love feeling like rock & roll music, liberating you from authority and from having to conform to societal norms. It is definitely the anthem of the album, screaming to be heard. The song's music video, which features Avril as a soldier against a hybrid bear-shark species which has stolen rock & roll music, is probably my favorite music video to date, not just by Avril but ever. "Here's to Never Growing Up" is the second track on the album and serves as the album's lead single (which was released all the way back in April). The song is lyrically and stylistically similar to "Rock N Roll" (although I definitely prefer "Rock N Roll"), referencing the band Radiohead in its opening line: "Singing Radiohead at the top of our lungs, with the boom-box playing as we're falling in love…" It is a little calmer, more mellow, than "Rock N Roll" but has a similarly fun, upbeat energy, the lyrical content basically being: This is who I am. I can be immature. Deal with it. "17" strikes me as interesting because it is basically about looking back at that age with nostalgia and recalling pleasant memories, and Avril was seventeen when her first album was released, a detail which I find important to the album's theme in general.

The fourth track is "Bitchin' Summer" and is light and fluttery. Lyrics aside, it melodically reminds me of the teen pop that I used to listen to on Radio Disney. It also, however, kind of reminds me of the sound that is present on her first album Let Go, especially because of the "Nobody's Fool"-esque rapping near the end. It is, to be perfectly honest, one of the weaker spots on the album, but it moves into the beautiful Evanescence-esque "Let Me Go" track, the album's third single. I was skeptical of the song when I first saw it on the track-listing because it is a duet with Chad Kroeger (Nickelback frontman and Avril's husband), and I don't care much for Nickelback; however, his vocals work very well for the song, which is a piano-driven rock song that essentially washes its hands clean of an ex-lover of the speaker. The next track is my absolute favorite on the album. "Give You What You Like" is haunting, featuring a slow, steady clap-like beat. The song has a country-pop sound to it, but it is also dark and brooding, heartbreaking, in fact, because of the sweetly innocent and naïve attitude of the speaker, with lyrics such as: "When you turn off the lights, I get stars in my eyes. Is this love? Maybe someday. I've got this scene in my head; I'm not sure how it ends. Is it love? Maybe one day…" My interpretation of the lyrics is that she is being used by her partner. What for is unclear - security or sex, perhaps - but she feels safe and wants to believe that they are in love. Stylistically, it really reminds me of Hilary Duff's self-titled album, with a sound kind of similar to songs such as "Fly," "Hide Away," and "Dangerous to Know." It's not heavy, but it has a melodically dark edge to it.

"Bad Girl" is the song that I was looking forward to the most because it features guest vocals by Marilyn Manson, and I love Marilyn Manson. It, however, is not as good as I was expecting (or hoping) it to be. Manson essentially serves only to give an edge to the song, as he is featured only minimally at best. The song is a heavy rock song that is wrought with sexual references such as: (1) "Just put your head in daddy's lap" (2) "you can fuck me and then play me" and (3) "choke me because I said so." It's a fun song, fast-paced, loud, and heavy, but I wish that Manson took up more space of it. I think that the song might be a comical response (comical because he is obviously in on it) to something that Manson said in an interview about Avril as a response to the apparent rumor that they had had some sort of sexual relationship with each other (Avril and Manson, that is) (Check it out here.). Avril's vocals are echoed so that it sounds like she is performing the song live, which I think helps make the song work. The following track is a very fast electronic Kesha-esque song titled "Hello Kitty" and is definitely new for Avril. It's difficult to take seriously and is probably my least favorite song on the album, essentially about having an out-of-control slumber party because the parents are away. I doubt Avril intends it to be taken seriously, though; it is meant to be fun and silly, and it is. The following song is "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," and no, it is not a Bachman Turner Overdrive cover. Melodically and stylistically similar to "17," it is actually one of only two songs on the album penned only by Avril (the other being "Falling Fast," while most others are co-written with Chad Kroeger and ex-Evanescence member David Hodges), about how being in love only gets better and better with each passing day.

"Sippin' on Sunshine" is similar to "Bitchin' Summer" in that it is kind of teen poppy and is also about enjoying the beauty of summer. The title, for me, is a euphemism for something personal, but that's all that I am saying in regards to that. "Hello Heartache" is one of my favorite songs on the album. The track is moderately paced with a lyrically bittersweet chorus that is backed by a fun.-esque "la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la" chant. "Falling Fast" reminds me of very early Avril, the demos from before Let Go. It is very light and acoustic and is lyrically about an attraction to someone that is quickly becoming love, and I almost want to hear it in a Disney film or a cheesy romantic comedy. The closing song is titled "Hush Hush" and is the song that most resembles Goodbye Lullaby (so much so, in fact, that I wonder if it is left over from the Goodbye Lullaby era). It is a great way to close the album, as it is a heartbreaking farewell to an ex-lover whom the speaker still loves but has to face losing. Lyrics are as such: "So, go on; live your life. So, go on; say goodbye. So many questions, but I don't ask why." The song reminds me of "Goodbye" (the closing song on Goodbye Lullaby), not only because it is kind of similar melodically but because "Hush Hush" is difficult for me to hear; I cry almost every time that I hear it because it brings back unfortunate memories, and "Goodbye" is even more deeply personal for me because of the "brown eyes" and "sunshine" references. "Hush Hush" is slow and sounds like a lullaby, as if the speaker wanting her ex-lover to move on is like putting him to sleep. Songs such as this and "Let Me Go" were probably written about her previous husband Deryck Whibley, but I don't like to reduce songs to nothing but what the artist might have written them about in relation to his or her personal life.

Different editions of the album have different bonus tracks, such as Avril's cover of "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback, her cover of "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett (which I don't really understand because it was recorded several years ago during the Best Damn Thing era and is featured as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Goodbye Lullaby), and "Rock N Roll" acoustic. The acoustic version of "Rock N Roll" is on the Target edition, which also has a much better album cover (as pictured below), as I am not too impressed by the standard album's cover. It looks like it was taken at night with a flash camera right above Avril's casket, as her face is whited out, and her eyes look lifeless; the white text does not mesh well at certain points because it blends with the color of her skin. The album itself, though, is definitely memorable, and I wish that (because of the summery songs such as "Bitchin' Summer" and "Sippin' on Sunshine") that it had been released in spring instead of autumn, and I wonder if, since the first single was released all the way back in April, it was originally intended to be released in the spring or summer but got delayed. It faced at least one delay, as it was originally supposed to be released in September and got moved to November, leaving room for three singles to be released before the album was even released, a rarity for albums and a definite first for her. It was worth the wait, however, as Avril Lavigne is a beautiful album, perhaps her most personal yet, as it demonstrates the evolution of a teenage girl to a young woman, and I, in fact, think that the album is self-titled because it is nostalgic of her earlier years as a musical artist and as a person in general, touching upon old territory while also venturing into completely new territory while being more her than her music has ever been. I just hope that since Avril once said that she was considering releasing a double album since she wrote that much music for this era, we will eventually get to hear the rest!