She returned last week with Head Above Water, her first album in six years.
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(I like to imagine its opening lyric about “singing Radiohead at the top of our lungs” as an analog to the Britney and Jay-Z references in “Party In The U.S.A.,” as if her music still existed in conversation with more straightforwardly poppy fare.) Who knows what might have happened had health problems not derailed Lavigne’s career, but here’s what did happen: She retreated from the spotlight for half a decade and saw her reputation bolstered in absentia. And if her status as a surefire radio staple was starting to wane by the time of 2013’s self-titled LP, the typically boisterous “Here’s To Never Growing Up” still made it to #20. Globally, she’s outsold all other Canadian women besides Céline Dion and Shania Twain. Lavigne has built herself quite a greatest hits collection. Lavigne herself kept racking up radio hits from her three subsequent albums: “My Happy Ending,” “Don’t Tell Me,” “When You’re Gone,” “What The Hell.” In 2007, she hit #1 with “Girlfriend,” a gleefully bratty cheerleader chant that could be the missing link between Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey” and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Against her usual onslaught of guitars and drums, Lavigne declared herself “the motherfucking princess” and sneered, “Hey you! I don’t like your girlfriend! I think you need a new one.” In the years to follow, a range of other women such as Kelly Clarkson, Hilary Duff, and Ashlee Simpson began releasing guitar-powered pop hits in Avril’s wake. Two more top 10 hits, the punchy “Sk8er Boi” and the power ballad “I’m With You,” cemented her stature as a both a hitmaker and a trendsetter. Soaring breakthrough hit “Complicated” flew all the way to #2 in the US, a frustrated plea for authenticity that trojan-horsed Platinum-grade pop craftsmanship into Hot Topic attire.
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Her persona was undoubtedly smart marketing - counter-programming for kids who recoiled at the Britney-style archetype but couldn’t resist a bop, or perhaps a chance for the Britney fans to play dress-up with an “alternative” persona - but it also made for some legitimately great pop music. Here was a TRL staple who unleashed her air-raid siren soprano over crunchy electric guitars, rocked a necktie over a tank top, and shredded at least as well as the “Sk8er Boi” in her monster hit. When Lavigne hit big with 2002 debut Let Go, the world knew her as the teen pop star with a mall-punk ethos. Avril Lavigne is back, and as usual, it’s complicated.