Avril's back with her third album, 'The Best Damn Thing', and with the production talents of Dr. Luke (of P!nk, Kelly Clarkson and Lady Sovereign fame) , she looks set to assault to pop charts with her infectious femme-teen-rock stylings. So how bad is it?
Curiously upbeat. Avril's ditched the faux-emo façade in favour of the more popular approach she took with Sk8r Boi. Banal and repetitive lyrics abound, then - most of the tracks employ the 'hey hey' technique of song-writing, notably 'Girlfriend' and 'The Best Damn Thing'.
A lone 'motherfucking' in the lead track earns the album the sales-boosting 'explicit lyrics' badge of honour, but apart from that it's all rather clean cut. Most of the songs are about vacuous teen relationship issues - in fact, the whole damn album is.
But, if we ignore the shallow nature of the songs, the forced smiles of the upbeat choruses, and the odd bum track, 'The Best Damn Thing' represents a good return to form for Avril. She's got the right selection of songs, the right production, and is poised to do well over the coming months in the singles charts.
The leading single, 'Girlfriend', the upbeat (although lyrically awful) 'Everything Back But You', and 'One of those Girls' are amongst the better tracks.
The cringe-worthy 'I Don't Have To Try'. The intro is particularly painful.
It's not as bad as you might have thought. It's as good as an Avril Lavigne album could be expected to get. Read into that what you will.
What next?More by Avril Lavigne? More reviews? More pop, or rock?