The last Avril Lavgne's single Girlfriend, which was released in February, is quite a weird and discrepant phenomenon. While most of the people who heard it used to confess that the new song is nothing special and even disappointing Girlfriend's popularity was showing steady and galloping growth up to the date of Avril's new album The Best Damn Thing release. Those who had never heard it should take to the account that Girlfriend is an uncomplicated punk song with a big share of pop influence and light-hearted lyrics where Avril plays a role of a bad, spiteful girl who wants to steal everybody else's boyfriends. This suggests the following conclusions: Avril Lavigne has grown older (she is 22 now, by the way, and she is married) and after working out her strategy decided to put pressure on her female-teenager fan base. And the second is: Avril Lavigne is simply ironies and doesn't take seriously the things that she says, in other words just having fun. Each of these suggestions can be disputed, but such a turn of her artistic ideas has already divided her fans into two camps: one votes for her teenagerpunk side and the other one don't really like it as these people expected something more mature and serious from Avril, especially after her recent album where this tendency began to shine through. And since Girlfriend was a forerunner for the upcoming release such question as "What should one expect from The Best Damn Thing?" comes quite naturally.
As Avril Lavigne said about The Best Damn Thing on her MySpase page: "It is really fast, fun, young, bratty, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way". Actually this is more than just exhaustive characteristic. The overwhelming majority of the songs are just like she claimed them to be, but there is one little reservation, Avril forgot to add "poppy". The Best Damn Thing is definitely not a step forwards singularity; everything is quite simple and predictable. Most of the songs are based on pop punk, there are a lot of potentially strong things but the album lacks for real hits. The problem is that the entire string of speedy songs makes it hard for you to figure out a certain composition. Of course, each song has it own specific melody and riffs but the general mood is identical almost everywhere. However the most speedy and aggressive track Everything But You (Clean Edit) deserves special attention, as well as aforementioned Girlfriend, a mid tempo Hot with its great chorus and probably I Can Do Better, which features some outright punk elements. Overall the loud side of the album turned out to be vigorous and fun, just like Avril promised, so if you feel a smell of boredom on your party play The Best Damn Thing, it will probably help you to solve this problem.
Ballads were always Avril Lavigne's strong point, and though there are only few of them on the album, the admirers of her romantically sensitive side will stay satisfied. When You're Gone, Innocence, Keep Holding On are minor, beautiful and slow songs. Each of them is really pleasant and interesting to listen even despite that fact that they have something similar as well. Those who expected that Avril would reject her teenager oriented songs will definitely love this part of the album. Overall The Best Damn Thing is sufficiently strong record, but it has a good share of disadvantages too. The album can boast its production work, great rendering and even its rebellious spirit but such terms as originality and songwriting wit cannot be written down in the list of its strong sides. Besides, there is one interesting tendency that shines throughout the album. It seems like Avril Lavigne wouldn't mind to join a big, adult pop scene and such divas as Gwen Stefany or Fergi, at least that's what the album's general sound, and some moments especially, makes you think about. However Avril's music was always pop, so speed and Avril's spiteful singing manner look much more like the things to wonder at than The Best Damn Thing's pop atmosphere.
Goodbye Alice In WonderlandAs a piece of music and as a coherent set of songs, Goodbye Alice in Wonderland is Jewel's strongest yet. Assisted by Rob Cavallo she has created her most sonically appealing record, one that has plenty of different shades and textures