Avril Lavigne: Under My Skin
Avril returns with a patchy kind of album, a busy mid ’90’s indie rock affair. The songs are a little difficult to remember, perhaps they should have been allowed to breathe and develop at a gentler pace (Rockist Bible 2001). At the worst of times she comes across as Alanis’s mini-me, wallowing far too much in teen angst and meeting the wrong guy (over and over), you wish she’d through in something a little more joyful, there’s no Sk8er Boi’s here. It’s not all disappointing, the best songs are the single “Don’t Tell Me”, “How Does it Feel” and “My Happy Ending”, which all have an anthemic feel that I like, and allow Avril to go through all her vocal styles.
The album tails off quite badly, from one mangled powerchord gloomfest to another, the last song proper is quite a nice ballad about loss and is only the real departure from a pre-occupation with ‘relationships’, and there is a UK bonus track “I always get what I want”, a laboured attempt at punk attitude, which really could have been left off. Overall, I want to like this more, “Let Go” seems a much more accomplished album in comparison.
Sacking the band and going blue grass would probably be a good career move at this point, or you know just trying to write some happier songs with sing along choruses. I?d really like Avril to cover Alice Cooper’s “How You Gonna See Me Now”, it would surely rock, or you know sit Avril down and play her some Journey, Cheap Trick and Heart.