Avril Lavigne turned to fans for advice on her new video and smiled back at them for their choice. They picked her song “Smile,” and the Canadian singer cranks out some guitar banging music.
In many ways fans did Lavigne a favor, because she returns to the “Ska8er Boi” style that made her famous and distinguished her from other pop stars.
Her tomboyish sex appeal– a one of the guys kind of girl– plus her power rock style made her a star at 17, when she broke through with her debut album, Let Go, in 2002.
She was known for baggy clothes, Converse sneakers, wristbands and tee-shirts. But the rise of glam acts like Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Beyonce pushed her into the background.
Her marriage to Sum41 frontman Deryck Whibley in 2006 also took her out of the limelight. But the couple split in Oct. 2009, and Lavigne has been working to reestablish her career ever since.
In a major re-engineering of her image, she unveiled a more feminine sexiness last October in Maxim magazine. The cover was Lavigne’s third for the magazine.
She says she never would have considered wearing dresses and heels before, but says she has matured as an artist and woman.
The rocker chick look is out, she says. Almost.
In March her long-delayed fourth studio album Goodbye Lullaby was released, but critics gave it mixed reviews.
In a bout of self-criticism, Lavigne called the stripped-down album “too serious” and “mellow.”
Although the album dramatically undersold her previous outings —Under My Skin (2004) and The Best Damn Thing (2007)– in its debut week, more than 1 million copies have been sold since its release.
In her new Shane Drake-directed video, she returns to her roots with a rock-out, power-guitar-chord driven tune.
The set is also pared down. Drake avoids the elaborate themes and costly production values of recent Gaga and Katy Perry videos.
Instead, he delivers a simple metaphor about moving on after a broken heart.
Check out the video below and a bonus video showcasing how it was made.
Boy, that ain’t the way I remember it. Lavigne wasn’t pushed aside by glam acts, she lost fans when she tried to be more glam herself. All I ever hear from her fans now is regret that she got caught up in shallow, narcisistic celebrity culture of clothing lines, perfumes etc. and abandoned that seriousness and fierceness and down-to-earth quality that we loved about her. Avril the crazy bitch is just a bore.
Avril didn’t sell out. She just grew up. You can’t expect her to run around in her baggy pants forever! That was cool ten years ago. Grow up man.
no one expected her to wear baggy clothes forever, they just didnt expect her to sell out like she did