The Best Damn Thing

05/08/2007 6:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

Boy, does that Avril Lavigne have a lot of chutzpah. Critics and haters be damned, Ms. “Complicated” has proclaimed her third album The Best Damn Thing. Well, it’s not, but it’s not the most God-awful thing either, as the Avril bashers would have you believe. All in all, it’s pretty damned good, if you take Avril for what she is, a young girl making slightly aggressive pop-rock for her peers. Young Avril has been a polarizing figure since she emerged in 2002 with “Complicated,” sounding a bit like Alanis Morissette’s teenybopper kid sister. “Real” rock fans consider her a manufactured pop confection, without an ounce of credibility. Yet I’ll ask those “real” rock fans a question: Is Avril Lavigne singing “I don’t like your girlfriend” any less credible than a 60-year-old Iggy Pop reuniting the Stooges and singing about going “Trollin’” for girls? The answer my friends, is no. In 2007, Avril’s twentysomething but still has her inner brat intact. In “Girlfriend” Avril mixes the sass of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” with the irresistible pop bounce of Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” Throughout the album, Avril drops f-bombs like a sailor, which is bound to create a quagmire for her tweenage fans’ liberal-minded parents, who are all for free speech, but don’t want their own little princesses swearing up a storm. On most of The Best Damn Thing Avril sticks to the pop-punk script, although in the opening of “I Don’t Have To Try,” she throws some rhymes down Peaches-style, before returning to the pop-punk formula. The real oddity is the prom ballad “Keep Holding On,” which was heard last year in the big-screen dragon flick “Eragon.” Sure the lyrics are a clich, but when Avril croons, “Just stay strong” in the cellphone-waving worthy chorus, you know to her fans, she really means it, man!