‘Goodbye Lullaby’ to be released next week
When Avril Lavigne came out of nowhere in 2002, she carved out a niche as pop music’s underdog, rejecting the excesses of pop celebrity and earning the nickname ‘anti-Britney’. With her last album, 2007′s “The Best Damn Thing”, she seemed to do a U-turn, embracing the popstar attitude she once scorned, changing her style, and hawking her own fashion and fragrance lines. Avril Lavigne Lyrics
Ever since, fans have endlessly speculated whether her next effort would represent the ‘Old Avril’ or the ‘New Avril’. But with her fourth studio album “Goodbye Lullaby”, due in stores March 8th, Lavigne has delivered a challenging and intensely personal album that, true to form, seems designed to defy the expectations of her label, her critics and her fans alike. This is Avril as we’ve never seen her before. Of the angsty, coltish teen, or the bratty pop princess, there is hardly a trace. Taking her marriage to, and later divorce from, fellow rocker Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 as her inspiration, “Lullaby” finds Lavigne firmly in introspective mode, exploring all her contradictory emotions with surprising candor and sensitivity. She takes us from the giddy early days of new love to the final realization that the relationship was over. Avril Lavigne Songs Throughout, she remains tender to her subject matter, often struggling with the difficult truth that sometimes being in love just isn’t enough. Sometimes relationships fail and it isn’t anybody’s fault, or because of something they did, or didn’t do. “It’s not enough,” she sings, “to give me everything I need. I wish it were.” Not every song stands equally well on its own merits. “Push” and “Smile” in particular seem to have been cobbled together out of spare parts from previous albums. And “Darlin” was written by Lavigne when she was 15 years old, and sounds like it. As the second song she ever wrote, it’s an interesting piece of juvenilia, and well worth a listen, but may have been more appropriate as a B-side.
But that’s the nature of “Goodbye Lullaby.” It’s an album in the fullest sense of the word — not just a collection of songs — and for the listener willing to follow Lavigne where she leads, it’s an album that generously rewards multiple listens.Which is not to say that Avril has lost her knack for commercial songs. Avril Lavigne Lyrics “Stop Standing There” and “Everybody Hurts” are as radio-friendly as anything she’s ever done; the latter song demonstrating once again what may be Lavigne’s most bizarre talent: the ability to be simultaneously cynical and uplifting. “Everybody hurts, everybody screams, everybody feels this way, but it’s OK.” It’s a song destined to become a bad-day classic. And if you’re thinking that the lyrics aren’t exactly Bob Dylan, you’re missing the point. Lyrics have never been Avril Lavigne’s strong suit. But music is a language that can cut deeply into places words can’t reach, and Lavigne here proves her fluency beyond all doubt. As she patiently, methodically lays her heart bare, it’s the music that finds its way in and lingers. And when she struggles to reach closure with the elegiac “Goodbye”, the emotional potency is undeniable. The end result is both powerful and satisfying. Avril Lavigne mp3 A lot has changed in the music world since 2002. Ironic that now in 2011, Avril is still the underdog and she’s still going against the grain. “Goodbye Lullaby” doesn’t sound quite like anything else out there. Small wonder that her label didn’t know quite what to make of it. It may not be the record they were expecting. It may not even be commercial. But “Goodbye Lullaby” marks a new stage in Avril Lavigne’s development as an artist, raising her to a new mastery. She has undergone a sea change, and produced an album both rich and strange.
