Avril Lavigne by Avril Lavigne (2013)
Title:
Its self-titled which is fair enough, but doesn’t leave much to review.
Album Art:
Not the most interesting cover I’ve ever seen, but I’d be lying if I said I never tried to replicate that smudgysexycool eye makeup. It reads a little Crying Prom Queen to me, in that time-honoured expression of young female angst (although not enough to draw Courtney Love’s ire as far as I can remember).
Overall:
Am I crazy for calling this Avril’s most experimental album? They’re definitely not all successful, but I get the real sense that the princess of pop-punk may be expanding her palette a little with this one. There’s the electro-weirdo thing happening on Bad Girl and Hello Kitty, country-with-power-chords in Sippin’ On Sunshine, plus a back to basics cover of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. Don’t worry Avril purists, there’s still plenty of mid-2000s bratitude with tracks like Rock N Roll, 17, and Bitchin’ Summer on this one too.
Track By Track:
1. Rock N Roll.
A walking (or singing I guess) cliché of everything Avril Lavigne and her ilk stand for. I mean you can check off your pop-punk bingo card within the first minute and a half here – use of the word “misfit”? check, middle fingers up? check, no one can tell you what to do? check – and it’s a whole lot of fun. Maybe it’s just the 2000s kid in me (I am writing a review of an Avril Lavigne album in 2023), but I can’t help singing along and declaring that Avril is indeed the “motherfucking princess”. Plus, those drums are engineered for head-bobbing with the same unerring precision with which IKEA designs varieties of cube-shaped shelving.
2. Here’s To Never Growing Up.
Okay never mind what I said about Rock N Roll, this one might be the quintessential summer pop-punk anthem. I mean such is the power Avril Lavigne wields that this one makes me nostalgic for a teenager-hood that I never even had, I was definitely never cool enough to have the kind of summers Avril sings about here. My perpetual uncoolness aside, this one still brings back all the best parts of summer breaks and makes me kind of wish I could go back and visit the time in my life for a little while.
3. 17.
Another pretty relatable one here. I think we all have that one song that brings us back to first teenage love and crushes and this is a cute little ode to that. I particularly like the line about “flicking lighters just to fight the dark”.
4. Bitchin’ Summer.
Let’s address the rap section right off the bat, it’s a very of its era so it doesn’t sound quite as cool as it did back then, but within its proper context it’s kind of endearing. Other than that, there’s not much to say about this one that I haven’t already said about the last three tracks; it’s another never-ending-teenage-summer-technicolor-daydream and like the others it’s fun to put on and reminisce or sing along to with the car windows down.
5. Let Me Go.
The album starts growing up a little here, that bitchin summer has ended and the guy you loved at 17 is liking some other girl’s nudes on Instagram (or something). We get Chad Kroeger guest-vocal-ing on this little ditty about love overcoming obstacles to triumph in the end. It starts out like a classic breakup song, but ends hopeful that the lovers can reconcile and “let go” of their troubled past – an oldie but a goodie where song themes are concerned. Fun fact: if you’re a newbie guitar player and want to work on your power chords this is an ideal song to learn.
6. Give You What You Like.
A moment of sobriety that draws the party-never-stops momentum of the first 4 tracks up short. Even Let Me Go is a little more high-energy, and unlike this one it ends hopefully. Give You What You Like speaks to anyone who’s ever decided that anythings better than lonely – at least for a little while. It’s the bargaining stage of grief and it really hurts. Give You What You Like is a grown-up song with grown up problems and some really beautiful vocal lines- listen to the lift on “get stars in my eyes” and tell me you don’t feel something. Definitely a contender for my personal favourite song on this album.
7. Bad Girl.
Everything about this one is creepy, from the whispery “lay your head in daddy’s lap” intro courtesy of guest artist Marilyn Manson, to the way Avril sings “you can do whatever [to her]” like a little girl trying to seem older without knowing the right words, to the fact that the surprise guest star is Marilyn fucking Manson. I have to assume Manson influenced the blurry techno-noises that crop up throughout the song, it’s a cool thing to hear Avril trying out, but I wish it was on a better song. I’ve read a few reviews (because I do occasionally do research) saying the whole album has a forced rebelliousness to it. I don’t really agree with that in general, but on this song, you can really hear it and it makes everything even more uncomfortable. I actually kind of like the “feed me/stroke my ego” chorus, but it’s hard to get around all the creepiness – even the laughter at the end comes off as awkward hysteria rather cool-girl carelessness.
8. Hello Kitty.
The less said about this one the better – also how did I never clock the “fat kid on a pack of smarties” line when I listened to this as a kid? Hello Kitty has taken a lot of heat for its not-so-respectful sampling of Japanese culture in the song and music video – but even if we ignore that for a minute it’s just not a great song. I’ve said some other songs on this album show their age in a charming way, but Hello Kitty shows its age in an embarrassing way. I actually don’t mind the decaffeinated -Skrillex EDM thing this one has going on because that was a big sound at the time and that’s what people were doing. Harder to forgive is the squealing, repetitiveness, and near-parodic overuse of 2010s internet slang (if this was intended as a parody it’s not quite landing for me). The pretty kitty stuff is also a little weird coming hot on the heels Bad Girl’s naughty little girl narrative, although I’m not sure if that’s intentional or if I’m being cynical again.
9. You Aint Seen Nothin’ Yet.
This is not one of the songs I really remember when I think about the album and it’s not doing anything especially noteworthy, but it’s a nice palate-cleanser after Hello Kitty and gets the good vibes rolling again.
10. Sippin’ On Sunshine.
Another one that ventures outside of the Avril Lavigne classic sound, this time with a little country lilt. Not Johnny Cash country or anything, but with the recent rise of polished and pop-ified country acts, I can hear this one being played on mainstream country radio if it came out today. Listen to a little Kelsea Ballerini or Marren Morris and tell me you don’t hear it – Queen Avril was just ahead of her time.
11. Hello Heartache.
This one also makes me think of country music, but I think it’s just because my mother raised me on The Chicks and they have a song called Hello Mr. Heartache. This is a break-up song, but it’s not bitter. This is the kind of break-up tune you can only get into if you’re staying on good terms with your ex, the kind of ending where it might hurt like hell but you both know it’s for the best – kind of a rarity for this genre.
12. Falling Fast.
A short and sweet little song about love in its earliest and rose-coloured-glassiest stage. It might be a little generic, but the lyrics are so tender and sincere-sounding that I can’t really criticise it – it really does sound like the aural equivalent of first-kiss butterflies.
13. Hush Hush.
Oh, this one hurts. This another wish-your-ex-well relationship-post-mortem, but unlike Hello Heartache it’s pretty clear we’re not staying friends here. This feels like one of those relationships where you started dating young and you just grow away from your partner and you hate to end it because you don’t want to hurt them, but you know you can’t stay and live the life you want (am I projecting? Maybe). So, Avril sends her lover off to “live your life” without “asking questions” because talking about it is going to hurt too damn much, but you know you’ll be lying awake wishing you could go back to when that relationship felt like it could last forever. I don’t remember particularly liking this one when I was younger, but on the other side of a few heartbreaks of my own it really hits different.
14. Rock N Roll (acoustic).
I like the electric version slightly better, but everything I said about that one applies here.
15. Bad Reputation.
I pray to Joan Jett like my own personal patron saint, so I love seeing her getting the respect she deserves from the artists walking in the prints of her combat boots. Avril doesn’t stray too far from the original with her cover, but it’s nice tribute to the original Queen of Pop-Punk.
16. How You Remind Me.
This Nickelback cover feels a little masturbatory considering Chad Kroeger co-produced the record, but I think they were dating at the time and maybe it was just an act of love and I’m too jaded. I do like Avril’s version of the song, it’s a little slower and more stripped-back then the original which allows her more feathery vocals to really shine. I like that they changed up the instrumentation and made it feel like an Avril Lavigne song instead of just Nickelback with a different singer, I’m always a fan of artists putting their own stamp on the songs they cover and its cool to hear a different interpretation of familiar lyrics.