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Avril
Lavigne
Under My Skin
label: arista
released: 06.04.02
our score: 3.5 out of 5.0
buy
it: here
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This one will surprise you, maybe, if you
haven’t been paying attention. Avril took a lot of heat
for her first album, some of it based on jealousy and some of
it based on her working extensively with the pop collective The
Matrix, which led to some people deciding that Avril was just
another pop puppet. (Like that really matters, anyway –
so what even if she was? The world needs pop, darn it, just like
it needs really really earnest emo bands or crunksters telling
us how to dance.)
So if you don’t know that Avril co-writes
ALL the songs on this album, you’ll be shocked to hear it,
especially when it means that a lot of them are mid-tempo poppish
rock instead of her last model of fastish-tempo punkish pop. Well,
and there’s a couple of big-hair power ballads here too.
And some stuff that sludges along dangerously using tricks learned
from Swedish metal bands. I’m serious here.
Some
of this new stuff is pretty shocking. “Forgotten”
does, in fact, honestly sound like Swedish techno/metal
band the Gathering, except fronted by a teen-pop princess instead
of an operatic diva. “Freak Out” uses stuttering synths
and a twin guitar figure that kind of sounds like Marshall Tucker
Band and kind of also sounds like Loverboy. And “He Wasn’t”
is kind of like “Sk8ter Boi” except harder and tougher
and cooler. (Not out there on the edge, mind you – she’s
not a risk-taker.)
But,
ultimately, it’s the same: a young white Canadian singer/songwriter
showing us her world. Avril Lavigne has certain ideas about things,
and she’s gonna give them to us. One of those ideas is that
the intense pressure put on girls to “put out” is
no different from date rape; while I agree with this, mostly,
I’m not sure if I could have put it as well as Lavigne does
on the first single, “Don’t Tell Me.” Here,
she takes a guy to task in full-on soft-to-loud blasty-crunchy
style. The dude, in spite of previous conversations about this,
has developed certain expectations about the evening, and our
heroine is here to set him straight: “Don’t think
that your charm / And the fact that your arm / Is around my neck
/ Will get you in my pants.” This is pretty tough, especially
when she goes on to tell the dude straight up that she is going
to kick his ass to make him never forget. I like this song, despite
its slowness and general anti-sex message, because it’s
going to inspire girls to stand up for themselves if they don’t
want to give it up, and that’s fine. (I just wish she didn’t
have to put down “that other girl” in order to make
her point, but one cannot have everything.) Plus, she sings pretty
much like the early Sinéad O’Connor at this point,
thrillingly weird keening notes, an inner aggression that bursts
out sometimes and messes your whole head up.
She’s not using the Matrix holding
company this time, but she’s chosen pretty well on her collaborators.
Fellow Canadienne Chantal Kreviazuk co-writes and co-sings and
plays a mean piano arpeggio on “Together”; Butch Walker
does a great job dropping out everything on the verses of “My
Happy Ending” except the basic underpinning of the song,
and then just exploding into the chorus: “You were everything,
everything that I wanted / We were meant to be, supposed to be,
but we lost it”. But it’s clear that Lavigne is listening
to a lot of good music (Liz Phair, Heart, Michelle Branch) and
some just okay ones (Linkin Park seems to be a big one here, but
thankfully she doesn’t rap), that she’s trying to
write the best songs that she can, and is singing her brave little
heart out.
Does that mean this is a truly great disc?
Well, no, it’s kinda hit and miss, especially on those slow-dance
lighter-waving numbers like “Slipped Away.” But the
songs have some heft to them, some weight, something that might
indicate longer-term ambitions for her. I hope she takes some
more chances next time, personally, but who cares what the hell
I think about the next record? This is one is really pretty good.
And anyway, for right now, the most important
thing is this: do the kids like it? My eight-year-old daughter
says “Yes.” So there’s that answer. And adults,
if they aren’t anti-pop snobs or Dylan/Beatles/Boring Stones
fanatics, will like it too.
03-Jun-2004
9:30 AM
If you
liked Under My Skin...
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Tracklist:
1. Take Me Away
2. Together
3. Don't Tell Me
4. He Wasn't
5. How Does It Feel
6. My Happy Ending
7. Nobody's Home
8. Forgotten
9. Who Knows
10. Fall to Pieces
11. Freak Out
12. Slipped Away
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