Avril Lavigne - The Best Thing

Marketing gimmicks are easy enough to hate. Who wants to feel manipulated by the marketing machine? It is especially easy to hate a marketing gimmick that tries to convince the large part of America that a pop singer is punk. Avril Lavigne burst upon the scene an angry teenager who didn't give a, you know, rip about anything. This quickly cemented her as a heroine for disillusioned teenage girls who looked to major label pop music for answers. The flip side of this success brings us back to the hate theme. Anyone not apart of her core demographic instantly saw Lavigne as nothing more than another pop singer, albeit one who wielded an electric guitar. The punk façade mixed with the hype machine really raised the ire of the anti-establishment, anti-corporate punk rock scene.

With Lavigne's third CD the punk illusion seems to have shattered somewhat. Regardless of how full of angst she seemed to be in the past, she has since gotten married and seems rather normal. Especially with Britney Spears going out and acting, well, rebellious. Even former Disney movie darling Lindsay Lohan seems more dangerous than Lavigne these days. So perhaps it isn't surprising that the cover of Lavigne's new album, The Best Damn Thing, scrubs away just about every realistic thought of punk from our mind.

A lot of the songs would work well in a pop punk context, especially with how the guitars are performed. However, it is Avril Lavigne's clear and catchy vocals that push the album more into the pop spectrum. If it was a guy singing there would be no question about the pop punk sensibility displayed. There are times where she tries to sound tough. Thankfully they are few and far between. They are also the funny parts of the album. At the end of "I Can Do Better" she does one of the "Huh!" grunts that Saturday Night Live parodied so marvelously a number of years back.

The best moments are reminiscent of what Puffy Amiyumi does well: straight forward pop rock songs that have killer choruses. It is especially obvious when Lavigne's voice takes on that rather tiny but
clear quality that marks Puffy Amiyumi's Japanese accent. The bad can be found in the non-rock tracks. "When You're Gone" is a ballad that would have been stunning if performed by someone like Kelly Clarkson, however, feels weak and unimposing with Lavigne behind the mic.

Lyrically the album is pretty much rubbish. It is mired in the topics that teenage girls like to gossip about-esseintially relationships and boys and who is (or should be) dating who. There is language, but the terrible swears are edited out. (The only way to get the unedited version is to purchase the special edition.)

If people can get the picture of a scowling, growling girl out of their head, fans of solid pop music will find this to appriciate in this album. This songs, while not at all creative, are super catchy and will run in your head long after the album has stopped playing. And really, is there nothing more important than that?