About a month ago I reviewed Joss Stone’s new album, Introducing Joss Stone. In my review, I stated that it seemed like she was trying a little too hard to be more mature. I also said that she keeps confusing her listeners because she is continuously reinventing herself. Well, I have recently been reunited with an identity crisis that makes Joss Stone look like nothing – Avril Lavigne.
I guess I’ll start at the very beginning. A good five years ago, along with many other 14-year-olds, I was a fan of Avril. She was cool. She wore ties. This was also when I though bands like Simple Plan and Good Charlotte were punk, but that’s beside the point. This was Avril’s “Sk8ter Boi” era. To me, her album Let Go was the greatest thing to happen to the music industry.
Cue critics and people who had better taste in music than me calling Avril a “poser.” This would make me so angry; I was young and na’ve and Avril was really the only knowledge I had of rock music (which is pretty pathetic considering the girl’s nowhere near rock). However, as I got older, I strayed away from Avril and began developing much better taste in music.
Then she released Under My Skin. This album was much darker than the rather energetic Let Go. I laughed at “Don’t Tell Me,” her first single off of the album. However, I once again found myself drawn to her new sound. She was cool. She wore black.
Since then, I have learned to resist the “Avril Allure,” though I will admit that when I heard that she was coming out with a new album, I was curious to hear what it would sound like. So I listened to it and to be fair, the album isn’t terrible. It’s radio-friendly and obviously geared toward a younger generation, as her music always has been. But I still can’t get around this identity crisis the girl seems to be having. Let me explain.
When she first came onto the scene, we were acquainted with Rebel Teen Avril. With Under My Skin, we came to know Goth Avril. Then she got married to Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley, and the wedding was no rock star wedding, mind you. She looked pretty in her Vera Wang wedding dress. In Jane, she was quoted as saying “I’ve been dreaming about my wedding day since I was a little girl…I wanted to be a princess, okay?” Hold up; Rebel Teen Avril said she had always been a tomboy and was not girly at all.
As mean as this is going to sound, Avril now comes off as stupid. In a recent MTV News interview, Avril went on and on about how much she drank in the studio and how drunk she was when she recorded her songs. She would even add some bimbo giggling for effect. She recorded her new single, “Girlfriend,” in seven different languages, and in this MTV News feature, scholars of the languages the song was recorded in sat there pointing out how she kept messing up the pronunciation. The best was when the French scholar (a language Avril actually speaks) said, “Does she look like someone who studied in school?”
Given, there are some catchy songs on the album and some of the lyrics will have listeners rolling on the floor with laughter. Of course, there’s the typical “Guys are lame” lyrics that are no stranger to Avril’s records, but listening to the title track, you hear lyrics such as, “I hate it when a guy doesn’t understand/Why a certain time of month I don’t wanna hold his hand.”
All-in-all, Avril’s album is good for a younger crowd, although one day they will look back and say, “What was I thinking?” It just seems like there is no progression with her, as if she is dumbing herself down by accident. Just because you are wasted when you record your music and drop the F bomb every now and then, doesn’t mean you’re all grown up. Please, Avril-grow up.
