Album Review

Avril Lavigne – Goodbye Lullaby

• 25th Mar 2011

We all have our guilty pleasures; some of us have lots but that’s another story. One of mine is Avril Lavigne, although I cannot confess to feeling guilty for it.

Avril exploded onto the scene in 2002 aged just 17 with a UK-number-one-selling album in Let Go. She has not looked back since with over 30 million albums sold, five worldwide-number-one singles, eight Grammy nominations and Seven Canadian Juno Awards. Now aged 26, she has just released her fourth album, Goodbye Lullaby. Oh and I forgot to mention her first three all went to number one in the UK! So Goodbye Lullaby has too, right? Well actually no, it entered the UK chart in ninth spot and has since dropped to 17 in its second week. Deservedly so? Lets Go find out.

I don’t care for the UK charts anyway. I certainly don’t care for the pop monotony that fills it these days, but it is a sure sign of the popularity of an artist in the mainstream, as Avril Lavigne is. Sadly, I feel her popularity waning (in the UK anyway) probably has a lot to do with her record company. Avril herself had let the world know some time ago that her album was ready and artistic differences with the record company had delayed Goodbye Lullaby’s release. With four years between this and The Best Damn Thing, you can’t help that think her music had been forgotten.

Instead, Avril the brand has been what has kept her fans plugged in to her success story. As with any switched on celebrity today, being a musician or the like isn’t enough – business and brand are where it’s at. Miss Lavigne is no longer the angsty teen we knew and loved, she has her own perfume range and clothing line; she’s an entrepreneur. Goodbye Lullaby’s opening reminds us of this right from the off.

Black Star, the album’s intro, is little more than that. In fact, it was originally written by Av, for the commercial for her first fragrance, Black Star, over two years ago. It has since been lengthened for the album. It’s a beautiful lullaby of a song, sensually crafted and brimming with tenderness, but at little over a minute and a half long you are left wanting. It never goes anywhere and that’s a real shame; it could have been so, so much more.

The album treats us to 13 of some of, no wait, 14 of some of Avril’s most scintillating vocals to date. You’ll excuse me for this error in calculations but track 14 is actually a “hidden track”. Well, a hidden track that is listed on the album’s back cover as a hidden track. Yep – beats me too! Why record companies still think this is a clever marketing ploy, I will never know. I have known some great albums where a hidden track was truly hidden: added on to the end of an eternal silence after the last song, not listed, not pre-marketed, or even released – hidden! The best of these is still Nine Inch Nail’s 1992 EP Broken with tracks 7 to 97 being one-second-long silences before two, yes TWO HIDDEN TRACKS. OK, I confess that they are listed on the cover but in the small print, beneath the copyright details. They aren’t there blatantly screaming at you, “I’m here because some twat at the label put me there to sell more records.”

Anyway rant over, where were we? Ahh yes – vocals. Right from the off, Avril’s vocals are nothing short of exceptional. She could never have been accused of not being able to sing before, but you could be forgiven in thinking she was all about the attitude rather than a true artist. But here her voice has matured, as has she. Her delivery has more prominence and when she reaches new heights in her vocal range, it is spine tingling. Not really something you’d have expected from the pop/rock princess. It’s more obvious too, with the album being far more stripped back than previous outings. Electric guitars make way for a more acoustic feel and this allows Avril’s voice to stand out, and stand out by a mile it does.

What The Hell is the first single of the album and is a great catchy pop rock track in the Girlfriend vein. It’s a fabulous track and will keep fans of the upbeat attitude-kicking Av happy. There’s also Smile, which I expect to be a single at some point. Again, this delivers that Avril sound we know and love. I feel that these tracks are more of what the record label would have wanted from the rest of the album but it is so much better for not having gone down that road. There’s a lot to love about the feisty deliverance of these tracks that we come to expect, but there is nothing wrong with growing as an artist and changing direction, if only a little bit. In fact it could quite easily have grown tiresome. What makes this album so great is that it’s unmistakably hers, yet it’s different enough. More importantly, it’s not until you have listened to it a number of times you even notice. You feel completely comfortable with it right from the off. It doesn’t grow on you, you’re there, loving it right from the start. You just didn’t realise.

Push is a cracking example of Avril at the top of her vocal range singing with such gusto you believe and feel every passionate word that she perfectly pronunciates. If it were down to me, this would be the next single off the album – it would win her new fans as well as captivate the old ones.

The lyrics on this album seem very personal. With her split from, and obvious lasting affections for, husband, Deryck Whibley of SUM 41 fame, being prominent inspiration, we are taken on a ride of emotion. He did also produce much of the album. It’s honest, touching and has some endearing heartfelt moments, none moreso than Goodbye, written and produced by Av, which is nothing shy of beautiful. It’s a personal statement and would have been a tragic yet romantic end to a brilliant album. One minute of silence follows the close of the string section on this track only to waken up again with that “Hidden Track”.

It happens to be the track Avril wrote for Tim Burton’s Disney film Alice in Wonderland. Similarly, the last album ended with a movie track, Keep Holding On from Eragon’s soundtrack. Neither film was any good but adding a track to a Tim Burton movie is certainly a far higher accolade than to one from Stefen Fangmeier who thankfully, after one dreadfully directed movie, has gone back into visual effects where perhaps he should have stayed all along.

Goodbye Lullaby is an exceptional album, both vocally and emotionally and I feel this is exactly what Avril Lavigne had intended it to be. It seems the wait was well worthwhile and there’s a lot in there for old fans and new alike. It wont make number one in the UK I’m sure of that and the only reason that’s a negative is for the ambition of the girl herself. But that takes nothing away from the accomplishment of this album, the growth of her as an artist and the scintillating vocals that Avril Lavigne can now produce.