Avril Lavigne, the skatur gurl singer who broke big at 16 in 2002, is back with a new album, Love Sux. It includes new singles “Bite Me” and another new tune that will drop this Friday.
Now 37, Lavigne is following up her sixth studio album, 2019’s Head Above Water. The album was well received, breaking into the Top Ten in a number of countries and reaching 13th in the United States.
The new album is one of the first out of the gate in 2922. It streets Feb. 25.
The 12-tracker includes the previously released single “Bite Me” and the new Blackbear-featuring track “Love It When You Hate Me.”
Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus also contributes to her song “All I Wanted” and Machine Gun Kelly is featured on “Bois Lie.”
Lavigne was a refreshing alternative to the homogenized female pop singers of the early 2000s. She was an unabashed guitar rocker, whose songs featured driving hooks.
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She was labled the “anti-Britney” in the media because her sexy tomboyish style and rock music was such a contrast to Britney Spears, the leading pop-princess at the time.
She hated the label. “I’m not made up and I’m not being told what to say and how to act, so they have to call me the anti-Britney, which I’m not,” she said in an interview.
Avril veered into heavy pop with her fifth studio album, self-titled Avril Lavigne, in 2013. It was certified gold and received a Juno Award nomination for “Pop Album of the Year.”
Now, Avril has gone back to her pop-punk roots. She described her new album as a “love letter to women and self-empowerment.”
“The spirit and the energy of this record is so much fun,” she said in a recent interview.
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She credits the shift in her music to signing with Travis Barker’s DTA Records.
“Well, it all started with Blink 182 being one of my favourite bands, and I have admired Travis my entire career,” she said.
“We worked together on ‘The Best Damn Thing;’ on that album and he played drums. And then on this, Travis is producing. We’re writing together and we just had such a blast collaborating in the studio.
“I think creatively, we just click, he gets me. Working with Travis, you’re totally right,” she explained.
“Where he’s like, ‘Well, what do you want?’ And he’s like, ‘Here’s my opinion. Here’s what I think.’ But ultimately he’s like, ‘I want it to be your decision. I want you to be happy with it.’ Because he gets it because he’s an artist. He’ll like to sit around, chat with me, give me his opinion and feedback.
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“But ultimately of course I’m going to listen to him, but he’s like, ‘Make the decision for yourself.’ So yeah, it’s been cool.”
Lavigne’s third album, The Best Damn Thing, released in April 2007, was her biggest commercial success. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and a platinum score in her home country of Canada.
The album sold more than 2 million copies in the United States, and its lead single, “Girlfriend”, was Lavigne’s first No. 1 single on the Billboard singles chart.
Check out the video below.
The ‘Love Sux’ tracklist
1. ‘Cannonball’
2. ‘Bois Lie’ (featuring Machine Gun Kelly) 3. ‘Bite Me’
4. ‘I Love It When You Hate Me’ (featuring blackbear) 5. ‘Love Sux’
6. ‘Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending’
7. ‘Avalanche’
8. ‘Déjà Vu’
9. ‘F.U’
10. ‘All I Wanted’ (featuring Mark Hoppus) 11. ‘Dare To Love Me’
12. ‘Break Of A Heartache’