More from the genius of Avril Lavigne

Nice to see counting is high on the Canadian curriculum. I can no longer say Our Lady Peace is Canada's premier rock band, it seems.

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go.to/stevek

A: Well, I'm in Mexico and I'm eighteen, so I'm drinking-age here, and Mexico is known for its tequila, so let's just leave it at that.

I've just worked out why I hate Avril so much. You know those people who obviously didn't touch a drop of alcohol until they were 18, so, as soon as they hit that age, they just drink anything they can find (including Reef and WKD, actually, just Reef and WKD), and get retarded after two units, and think that alcohol is, like, really cool, and go "Hey! Let's get drunk!" and they think that makes them some kind of big fucking rebel just for having a drink? Avril is one of these people.

Still, Avril could say "Really, you've got to blame the blacks for that whole slavery thing", and 20% of ILM would defend her.

Also, drinking age is 19 in Canada.

(Drinking age in Ontario, her home province, is 19. It's 18 in Quebec though.)

P.S. Drinking is fun.

Nope.

What I find amusing about Avril -- and I for one can't really muster up any hate for anyone these days -- is that, yeah, the only difference between her and that girl at Cosi is a recording contract. I'm thankful that she's famous so I can be entertained by her interviews.

check out the pics on:
http://www.apogeedigital.com/users/users_matrix.html

"Have you got an Electronics Boutqiue loyalty card?"

As for that picture -- so her production team is Fred Schneider, Perry Farrell and Anne Rice?

Like yeah, she's obviously only a few inches to the left of Britney. Woohoo, thanks for pointing that out, Einstein.

For a teenage girl, she's very typical. And teenage girls tend to be fairly stupid. So why is her immaturity an issue?

This is a little off-topic, but it's what I see in Avril. That same thing I see in my sister and all her friends.

Sorry, can't resist.

A: Fuck, yeah. I'm the exact same person that I was two years ago. I'm not, like, a stuck-up little bitch, like some other rock stars get.

Am I the only one who found this rather amusing?

And Avril IS punk, because punk deserves Avril.

Mel sez: "Avril Lavigne is what my sister would be like if she got famous right now," which from what I imagine Mel's sister to be like sounds absolutely true. This is why I like Avril, and this is why I like to toy with the idea that there's actually something quite "punk" about her as a personality: a mostly-normal spunky brat of a teenaged girl has been given free reign to act and write and perform as she wants to, resulting in this great torrent of teenagerisms I find massively enjoyable. Norman speaks for me -- and if ILM has sunk to the level of picking on musicians for not answering "describe things in X words" questions in the proper number of words, then something is desperately wrong.

On this issue I'd put it more like this: a lot of the criticisms of Avril I see on ILM seem to revolve around the idea that pop music should be some sort of meritocracy, where music is prized for demonstrating that its makers are more clever or insightful or progressive than their competitors. This is all well and good as a critical model, I suppose, but it's not what I tend to want out of pop music. I don't care if she's a blithering idiot with the worst tastes and opinions in the free world: she's got two singles I really enjoy, and to be honest if she spent her free time writing reviews of history of science books for the New York Review of Books I'd probably like her less.

It also pains me to hear people say "she's fake and inauthentic" and then say "her songs are dumb" and then say "judging from these interviews, she's dumb too" -- if you think the latter two are true then the first cannot be.

Punk was so previous generation and no-one is really punk anymore, in the 70's sense of the word.

Contemporary punk is different to 70's punk and if people like Avril want to claim the moniker then let them. Not many 18 yr olds (esp. girls who call themselves punks and like sk8ter bois) would be disagreeing with her anyway.

Why should female punk and male punk sound the same? Males and females who hang out in the same social groups (and are often therefore referred to using a common word) frequently produce and indulge in quite different stuff. Sure, this isn't always the case but as far as music goes, most female voices have very different qualities to most male voices and in most of the heavier styles of music the songs sung by females tend to be more poppy or more melodic. If people choose to express similar sentiments in different vocal styles then what's the problem?

It seems funny that people say "Avril's not punk" and then "Avril can't play the guitar" and "Avril's lyrics are crap" - when most punk is totally crap lyrics & musicianship and so if she is or was aiming at being punk then if her lyrics are crap, she can't play the guitar and she dresses punk then she's at least 3/4 of the way there. The only 1/4 she got wrong was the slick production.

like we do in england? ;)

and, yeah, there's something nasty abt. a load of men ganging up to criticise a teenage girl for being, er, a teenage girl. and 'punk-rock' means nothing anymore. get over it.

how to reconcile being a middle-aged popster fulla hate, hating and paying lotsa attention to this here wee stupid lass, hoping maybe, you know, there's some kinda way to bridge the impossible, re: how do i justify/make legit my neurotic obsessions, fear of aging/death, etc. projected onto this year's model puke pablum coupled with the ever-diminishing returns of a lifetime spent wallowing in the popworld muckety-muck. seems like some sort of cool ass stuff, aged 14 - 1979: i swear on a stack of Paul Morley reviews that by god i'll never be a rockist - 21st century onwards you wake up morning and realize your're the Simpsons comic book guy ... 'wurst yoof evah!'

give it up - is she really worth the bother? it's not like you or your mother or your kids are even gonna remember her name this time next year. and it ain't like she's ever gonna redeem herself by playing with keiji haino or marrying mark e. smith (tho that'd be a treat).

dom, i was more concerned with the invective inspired by her thinking getting drunk is cool. i still think getting drunk is cool! and that five things question. sneering abt. that is as pathetic as asking the question in the first place. all the "she's not punk" stuff is ridiculous, too. what exactly does it mean?

and you know i'm just abt. the least rockist person on these boards and i don't even like her records, although i like 'sk8er boi' because it makes me laugh.

I feel sorry for Avril in a way. Actually, in a big way, because you know the girl would swallow horse semen if her record label told her to. She's just a tertiary rate Lilith Fair artist where some bright spark of an A&R man said "Hey... how about Sheryl Crow 182?", which is more proof that A&R men should be buried under rubble.

You have to accept, though, for a certain group of society (a group that includes me), Avril represents a lot of things that we hate (whining middle class brats complaining about nothing, going "OMG LoL I'm sO aLtErNaTiVe!!!! :) :) :)", and the video for "Complicated" makes me want to just slap the girl (Hey, some fucker's doing their job there, you want me to come to your gig and throw shit at you as well?)).

And, hey, if she wants to call herself punk, that's her bag. I can call myself black if I want, doesn't mean I am.

Isn't that the point of a music forum?

I wuv Avril. She's not stupid. Dizzy is a good word. Yeah.

65+ answers in under a day on something we've discussed 5 times before = a nerve is being struck. Remembering her name isn't the point really.

Obviously if she was at an age where she really wouldn't know better,it wouldn't be fair play, but most 18 year olds are able to count!

As for whether Avril is "punk" or not, I cant think of a criteria for judging music that interests me less. Pass.

There's always been that, though -- that's the nature of pop! Nothing's ever a golden age per se because there's always quite a bit of twaddle at the same time.

The whole point of music journalists is to edit the semi-conscious grunts and self-involved ramblings of musicians into good copy to give the public the impression that the records they are buying aren't made by fools. I bet *no* musician has ever really answered that sort of a question in five words. But in this case the journalist has chosen to edit the piece so as to make the musician look stupid. Which tells us something about 'Avril Lavigne' as an icon, if not as a person.

"I bet *no* musician has ever really answered that sort of a question in five words"

Yes, again it was the journo's fault for presenting Avril with the near-impossible and as-yet-unaccomplished task of summing up her year in five words. How could she possibly succeed? It couldn't be because she ain't too bright, surely?

Even if you take out the "this year has been"s, her answer was:
"Insane, Fucked, Wicked, Inspiring, Good to me"

That's 7 by my count. My point is: I'm not treating Avril harshly by mocking her, because I'd do the same to anyone, pop star or otherwise.

(ECHELON and Total Information Awareness and L'il Johnny Poindexter to thread!)

I'm sorry, Nabisco. I didn't realize pick on Avril was a sign of the apocalypse.

I look at her as a big ol' signpost of where we're at in pop music circa 2002. That a naive and, let's face it, not too bright (despite, yeah, RS's obvious attempt to highlight it) teenage girl could become a star by treading lightly upon punk (on the suggestion of A&R types) is interesting. Does she have anything to say? Obviously not. Is that her appeal? It would have to be, wouldn't it? Isn't pop about the message being the form? Good time, be happy, all that. (insert "nothing wrong with that" caveat)

So if people can "luv" Avril for the "genius" of "Sk8r Boy," why the moral indignation over finding amusement from the "genius" of her amusing interviews?

Ho ho ho.

She is not as good as Vanessa Carlton, thee HI-SPEEED PIANNER PLAYA!

I am mortally offended by Avril Lavigne for her lack of KEY CHANGES. If you are going to go the power-pop route we need at LEAST two key changes. I know exactly where they should go but she resolutely chugs along in her clear-skinned way.

I think Avril is very nasty to the GURL featured in sk8r boi. And the boi is a nob for still writing songs about her years later and STILL being a sk8r instead of an "interesting" and "artistic" craic addict.

It's not wrong, but it's very interesting that Avril's receiving extra special attention out of all the not-so-bright pop stars (and surely there are others, just as surely there are smart ones). The implication is that there is some specific factor which makes Avril being stupid more noteworthy, more humorous, more necessary to those who dislike her.

My guess would be that Avril's (alleged) stupidity acts as a disclaimer upon her success, saying in big letters "THIS IS NOT THE REVOLUTION, MERELY A FALSE ALARM!"

Obviously I agree with everything Sarah said.

Not necessarily; if this had been a Brit interview it would still have been posted here and analyzed. I don't think Avril is beig unduly picked on at all, and I can't understand the repeated reasoning of all of her defenders on here. What makes her stupidity noteworthy is the fact that she's being marketed as everything "anti-Britney," - not an air-head, but ya know, the real thing, the alternative, (or okay, "mallternative") - when she's just as dim-witted, and if this is the real thing isn't it a bit depressing? Not that I'm a fan or anything, but have you ever read anything similar from say, an Alicia Keys interview? If you can find interviews from people of around the same age and you don't see egregiously braindead comments, it may indicate the veracity of the "stupid" impression given by the interviews that do reveal such things, and so I'm not buying the "usually all this is edited out" rationalization.

If you've ever noticed, though, Justin [relatively] has quite a vocabulary in his interviews, both in print and on camera. I've heard him use words like "merely," and "adhere" correctly before, I swear

I'm not giving her special attention, and obv there are loads of thick pop stars, even ones whose music I adore. I'd slag anyone who said something similarly stupid. I love Primal Scream, but I've slagged Bobby G's idiocy much more than Avril's. I was merely defending the right to slag a pop star for saying something stupid. Several of the posts implied that any mocking of this interview was either rooted in jealousy, or not fair play because of her age/the way the journo treated her. I cannot agree.

What special attention? Am I supposed to make fun of every single person I think is stupid every time I want to make a joke? "Poor Avril can't count to five, much like KRS-One and Fred Durst and Perry Farrell and Jessica Simpson and Lance Bass and Nick Carter and Kevin Richardson and Ryan Starr and [ad infinitum]"

"Not necessarily; if this had been a Brit interview it would still have been posted here and analyzed."

I don't think this is necessarily true. When have we picked on Britney interviews? Britney's interviews don't need analysing because it is universally accepted that she is a vacuous pop star - there is nothing at stake. Whereas figures like Sophie Ellis Bextor or Avril receive more attention because there is the element of distinction from "empty pop". With Sophie it's because of her class and education (I presume). With Avril it's because she's impinging upon ideas of "alternative" and "punk".

"What makes her stupidity noteworthy is the fact that she's being marketed as everything "anti-Britney," - not an air-head, but ya know, the real thing, the alternative, (or okay, "mallternative")"

Well, yeah, this is exactly what I was saying. But you can't complain about this and then claim that this isn't the agenda behind poking fun at her. It also means that there *might*, just *might* be a chance that people are looking for stupidity in order to disprove the anti-Britney marketing. I mean, Avril's hardly winning any debating prizes with her comments, but they're not exceptionally awful or surprising. What I've read of Kurt Cobain's diary is much more banal.

NB. I don't even like Avril exceptionally.

Oh, well that shut me up. Silly me, I forgot PUNK UEBER ALLES.

I'm not really, it doesn't have much bearing on Avril's quality as a pop star. But I'm still gonna mock people when they say something stupid.

"It should be obvious that giving a 7-word answer to a request for 5 words is infinitely more punk than giving 5 words would be. How many words do you think Sid or Joey would have used?"

Tell me, why do you think she used 7 words? Was it:

a) As a rebellious, two-fingered gesture to the slimy press hack.

or

b) She didn't do it on purpose, she used 7 because she's a bit dim

a) people are too thick to follow simple instructions.
b) people are too clever to follow instructions when they seem to be pointless or stupid or trivial.

Actually the truth, as here, is probably a bit of both.

Ah, THAT'S why I hate it! ;-)

it takes a pedant to know a pedant ;)

I would be interested to see if Avril-ohne-songwriters veers more towards "Complicated" or "Sk8er Boi". I would hope former, but I fear latter.

(or is it the other way round?)

Ari Up, Poly Styrene, Siouxsie, etc., etc.

The Slits were reggae. The Spex were fusion. Siouxsie was industrial.

I think Avril is nasty in Complicated too, I mean how does she know the guy isn't really a preppy who feels under pressure from his girlfriend, what a bitch, why can't she just let him be whatever he wants to be. It's not very nice for her to beat down his efforts to become a preppy if it's really what he wants. I mean surely being a teenager is all about discovering who you are anyway.

I'm not really serious about this but I'm not totally joking either.

Was electroclash the last thing which had daily threads dissing it?

"Contemporary punk is different to 70's punk and if people like Avril want to claim the moniker then let them. Not many 18 yr olds (esp. girls who call themselves punks and like sk8ter bois) would be disagreeing with her anyway.

Why should female punk and male punk sound the same? Males and females who hang out in the same social groups (and are often therefore referred to using a common word) frequently produce and indulge in quite different stuff. Sure, this isn't always the case but as far as music goes, most female voices have very different qualities to most male voices and in most of the heavier styles of music the songs sung by females tend to be more poppy or more melodic. If people choose to express similar sentiments in different vocal styles then what's the problem?

It seems funny that people say "Avril's not punk" and then "Avril can't play the guitar" and "Avril's lyrics are crap" - when most punk is totally crap lyrics & musicianship and so if she is or was aiming at being punk then if her lyrics are crap, she can't play the guitar and she dresses punk then she's at least 3/4 of the way there. The only 1/4 she got wrong was the slick production."

Uh, your third paragraph completely contradicts the two before it. If Avril's punk is a different, "contemporary," "female" version of punk that can't be measured by the standards of old, male punk, then how can you justify her crap guitar playing, lyrics, and fashion by saying she's trying to fit in with punk's past? She's either the different or the same, not both. Pick one.

In fact, let me go out on a limb and speculate a little, and apologies if this doesn't apply to anyone here. Perhaps she is the opposite of what ILM might call a "rockist" review of a chart record: she waltzes into the realm of punk and treats it like just another set of gestures for pop music, and maybe what some people are experiencing is a "no fair" reaction. If people who like rock are expected to take the differing standards of pop seriously, they might say, then surely it's fair for us to expect the same of a pop artist banking on the M.O. of a rock genre.

And yeah, this is possibly what I like about it. I don't understand prickliness about punk: in the U.S., anyway, popular "punk" since the late 80s at least has been just as much about funny pop bands as "serious" material -- I like the Mr. T Experience, I like the Queers, I like the Descendents' "I'm the One," I like the sort of Lookout punk that treats the form as just a platform for hooky fun-having. Avril strikes me as an interesting variation on this sort of thing.

I also don't like this assumption that Avril must necessarily think she's really cool or clever for doing what she does. I don't know, I've not really read her interviews. But on a track like "Sk8er Boi" she seems more, to me, like a girl having fun dressing up for a high-school talent show, stealing a tie from her father's closet for a nice "punk" touch, having a ball doing it, and then somehow being allowed to take that show on the road. If she does think it's ridiculously clever of her, I don't think that would bother me too much either: I think there's something sort of cute and funny about the way teenagers think they're brilliant for doing stuff like this. That's half of how high school works in this country, and Avril's lyrics and personality are nothing if not totally high school.

For those who just don't like the songs, fair enough, obviously. Personally I like them both a lot. Also I find them fun and surprising, which is the main thing: the first time I heard "Sk8er Boi" I was amazed and I freaked out a little and cranked up the car radio and sped a bit. It was fun, and it was funny -- funny in a cute way, funny in the sense that one can be both impressed and amused by a lot of teenagers' teenagery behavior. I don't mean to imply that my enjoyment of this stuff is patronizing -- more like the way I imagine parents would just chuckle lovingly at the funny being-cool excesses of their teenaged children. Thinking it's incredibly important whether she's actually cool or clever only means descending to the high-school level she's at on "Sk8er Boi," doesn't it? Saying "no one will remember you in five years" is saying something a lot like what she's fantasizing about saying to the ballet girl.

Anyway, I like it. It's light and peppy and fun; I'm tempted to make a Cyndi Lauper reference. If you take rock very seriously and don't appreciate her messing with it so casually, I suppose that's a valid opinion, but I think the stuff she's dealing with can afford to be tweaked a little right now.

Uh, I don't hear a thing in her music that is "punk," even compared to more "pop" forms of "punk." But I won't open that can of worms again.

Nabisco, you're my boy and I love you like a brother, but this is possibly the most (unintentionally-) hilarious thing I've read in a while. "I'm not PATRONizing, I'm patronIZING. See, it's different!"

Right, Dan, so to me, it sounds like Toraneko is saying Avril's version of punk is a "different" version of punk. But then the third paragraph, he/she (sorry) justifies Avril's lyrics,guitarplaying, and fashion by saying she is actually the "same" as other punk. This seems like wanting to have yr cake and eat it too.

Speaking of annoying, why did Weezer have to come back?

Bringing up another point: is Avril a multiple-platinum-selling recording artist because she couldn't get into college?

Maybe so, since I don't "see" music, I "hear" it.

Eighth-note palm-mute power chords shifting every measure and then un-muting for the chorus are evident in heavy metal, too, something that's decidely not punk.

Cf. Sum 41!

Anyway, what I was going to grant was that the "format" of that single could just as easily be described as power-pop or alt-rock. The thing is that power-pop, alt-rock, and pop-punk have all boiled down to a common basis of sorts: I think what separates them has less to do with the sound and more to do with the gestures that are used to communicate them. I could easily imagine "Sk8er Boi" as an Ash song, or a Superdrag song, or even a Cheap Trick song -- probably more so than "punk" -- but "punk" has still been brought to the table by these people saying "it's not real punk," and I think that's because those accompanying gestures put it in that realm. I dunno, maybe we can at least agree that it's silly for people to cry "it's not real punk" -- you because you don't think it's anything to do with punk in the first place, me because I don't think it matters.

Also to Dan: I don't think that attitude is necessarily patronizing at all! For instance: I listen to "California Uber Alles" and I think Jello is a political idiot and basically ridiculous with that original approach to Jerry Brown, of all people -- but I still find it funny and fun and get a chuckle out of his antics. I don't think that's necessarily "patronizing." I don't think it's patronizing for me to chuckle over the Queers singing "yummy yummy punk rock girls," and I don't think it's patronizing for me to chuckle lovingly over early Ween and think "Jesus, this is great, these guys must have been stoned out of their heads when they came up with that." I think there's a difference between being actively patronizing and just being amused by someone's silly antics -- and I think the difference is whether you think those silly antics are "important" or not.

(Haha also I think everyone should keep going with the Avril threads -- if we all write in full sentences then next year's Da Capo is totally ours.)

Why would I hate you, esp. about that Chicago comment (which I forgot about, btw)? I don't at all, I just thought your example was flimsy. I've only heard parts of two songs by Avril, all of "Complicated" and about 10 seconds of "Sk8er Boi," and I didn't think either were punk in the musical sense (forget the social/cultural/political/whatever sense, because she surely isn't that at all).

I think that when I brought up punk on that other thread of her NY Times quotes, a lot of people (not naming names or anything) thought that I meant it in a "she's-not-doctrinaire-school-of-'77" way, which wasn't what I meant at all. Then again, I'm not sure if I was the first to bring up punk anyways, since it's been claimed both by her and her media/industry champions, and if it's wrong for me to comment on that, well I don't wanna be right.

I dunno, maybe we can at least agree that it's silly for people to cry "it's not real punk" -- you because you don't think it's anything to do with punk in the first place, me because I don't think it matters.

I think I can agree to that.

Meeting was quite scintillating then, I take it.

No, I mean someone who doesn't know/doesn't care about that type of music and is being exposed to it for the first time.

I'll give you an example: when I booked bands at my college, I booked mostly indie rock (even though I liked a lot more music than just that), for the reason that it was cheaper to put on shows (and hey, I like Jeru too, but I'm not gonna spend $15K plus a lot of ridiculous rider expenses on him, esp. when our budget was about $10K a semester - meaning I could do a lot of indie shows). A few people into dance, hip-hop, other kinds of music would come to the indie rock shows and be kind of confused in terms of what they were hearing. I'd hear from them, say, Polvo and Shellac sound alike, why bring both of them? Now, to anyone who's familiar with those two bands, there's many ways to point out the differences, but to someone who's not really that interested in the genre as a whole, how are they going to understand differences and nuances that fans take for granted?

{/tangent}

also, what are there no cheap 2nd tier (i.e. "indie") dance, hip-hop etc. artists that are available for booking?

Not any that I knew of in '94-'97. Back then, everyone was clamoring for Jeru the Damaja, but his rider was ridiculous (yeah, like I'm gonna fly you in to Poughkeepsie, then send a limo, then provide you and your 50+ entourage with buckets of fried chicken [serious!]).

In contrast, all Loren Mazzacane Connors asked for in addition to the guarantee was a ride from the P-town train station. But then again, he's a virtual saint, so...

Obviously this {/tangent} tag doesn't work.

In the next paragraph I am saying that people may create different stuff somewhat due to their different gender despite being part of the same culture or subculture but that it is still valid to label it according to their sub/culture's label.

In the last paragraph I am using an interpretation of punk that is, or was, quite common and showing, in an ironic fashion, that Avril does meet the criteria of this interpretation of punk.

The idea of separating writing into paragraphs is that each paragraph explores a different idea.

I can't believe that anyone seriously, literally interprets a "describe in five words" type of question as meaning "only use five words" or even "only use five adjectives". Surely the idea of this type of question is only to prevent a one word answer?

Why did so many people pick on Avril for not using on five words and yet neglect to pick on me for saying "a couple of things had occurred to me" and then listing four or more? I had originally written "a few" but changed it to "a couple" to test how picky you guys really were. It is now obvious that you were just looking for (pathetic) excuses to pick on Avril.

As for whether Avril is "punk" or not, I cant think of a criteria for judging music that interests me less. Pass.

-- kilian Murphy (kilian.murphy2...), December 4th, 2002.

ok i dont want to tell ppl my real name but this a a response to this
word slag means kill somebody now also a bunch of guys rapeing killing avril now thats just sick and sucking horse semen no no no you must be in undead mother fucker to say that but well i love her and her songs my fav song is sk8ter boi and complacated is also great so to the ppl that hate her just go fuck your slfes and leaves us ppl alone!

"slag" = "make fun of". "slag" != "frag".

There is more than meets the eye - I see the soul that is sinside.

Sinside? Freudian.