Avril Lavigne tossed out her neckties years ago. Once hailed as the “anti-Britney” with the release of her chart-topping 2002 album, Let Go, the former teen rebel has since stripped down for Maxim, launched numerous product lines, married and divorced. And now it seems the angsty power pop image that many associate with the 26-year-old Canadian has given way to a more mature artist.
Avril’s latest album, Goodbye Lullaby, leaves out the Tony Basil-like chanting found in girl power anthems Girlfriend and The Best Damn Thing, and we barely hear any distorted guitar, a mainstay in her multi-platinum selling earlier work, like the adolescently mispelled Sk8er Boi. Lavigne opts instead for a stripped down, mostly acoustic selection of relationship songs, a move she equates to opening a new chapter in her life.
“Goodbye Lullaby stands for and represents moving forward in life,” she says, sitting on a couch in a suite at Kowloon’s W Hotel, cross-legged and casual. “The body of songs is less pop rock. They’re deeper, more emotional.”
That’s not to say the pop punk princess has completely abandoned her roots. She still sports her signature, pink and green hairstreak, and the new album’s lead single, What the Hell, still oozes the traditional Avril power pop, celebrating sex and play with simple and relatable lyrics.
Perhaps that explains why she has noticed fans sticking with her through her transforming career. “It’s a good thing to keep people around,” she says. “I guess there’s no way to really tell, but a lot of fans that I come in personal contact with, I can tell have been around from the first record.”
On her 2008 tour, Avril hired background dancers for one choreographed, high-pitched screamfest after another. But the singer’s new sound calls for a new show, something a little more stripped down with less focus on theatrics and more on music. “I did a big, crazy pop production last tour,” she says. “This album is more about singing, and more about musical instruments, so I’ll go that way for the tour.”
With or without dancers, Avril’s backlog of chart toppers – the long list of boy-bashing, middle finger-raising hits – is sure to trigger the crowd into frenetic energy. “I think it’s cool because I was, like, really innocent and young and carefree,” she says, “so a lot of my music captured that in me in the music in that time.”
Despite Lavigne’s constantly morphing look and sound, her Hong Kong fanbase has remained loyal, with Goodbye Lullaby debuting at No 1 on the HMV charts. She remains huge within our borders, and, it seems the admiration is mutual.
“All my shows across Asia are amazing. It’s really cool because a lot of people don’t speak English, but they learn the songs, so it’s really nice for me to come here,” she says. “To be on the other side of the world, it’s just an honour for me.”
