Goodbye Lullaby

What took Avril so long to release this album?

Goodbye Lullaby is Canadian rock-star Avril Lavigne’s album number four, released only four years after the delivery of her previous effort, The Best Damn Thing (2007). Such a long pause between these two albums is not a part of Lavigne’s plan to test the patience of her numerous fans. The reason is that she has been recently pushed to go through a lot of hardships, which she did with dignity anyway. We all are well accustomed to gossip, speculation and even in-your-face accusations involving Lavigne’s alleged plagiarisms. She is also accustomed to all of this as she takes these attacks as an integral part of working in her genre, where songs of different performers might be easily found similar or alike. After all, this is pop-rock, a field where nothing totally new can be offered, and where same simple chords travel from one track to another hand in hand. Far more difficult was for the singer to solve her private life issues. Her marriage with Derek Whibley, which started so enthusiastically, ended unexpectedly in divorce. Again, Avril took it wisely by commenting the whole matter as parting as friends. As strange as it might seem, none of these upsetting developments tool their toll on Lavigne’s professional activity. She did her best to release another high-profile record.

Acoustic strike on punk-rock

The prevailing part of the Goodbye Lullaby track-list was penned two or three years before it was officially put out. As early as then Avril was heading steadily towards the shores of the acoustic sound, now predominant on her new album. She might have as well released an entirely acoustic CD, considering how good she is when singing to this guitar alone. Nevertheless, it was very important to her to add some of her true punk-rock touches to this album, albeit tangible only in a couple of songs. One of them is the single named correspondingly What The Hell. Should Avril had made the whole record like this we would have got another The Best Damn Thing, but tracks like this one are very few here. Probably, another one worth mentioning is Smile. What is highlighted here is the tempo constantly kept below the mid level. It can hardly be called true rock-ballad material with powerful choruses engaging electricity and loud high-pitched voice. Cuts like Everybody Hurts, and I Love You feature Avril singing calmly as if trying to focus your attention on the lyrics. So far, she succeeds every second time only, because there where words are short of power, she has nothing to offer but pop-oriented instruments. Still, this is what will always be loved on the radio. The whole set is done professionally, flawlessly, but it takes time to get used to the new Avril Lavigne.

A different Avril Lavigne?

The first album by the Canadian singer was delivered almost a decade, which means that today the overwhelming effect of her sudden, loud and explosive emerge on the stage has faded away. Still, she is in the limelight. Probably, because Avril has no plans to get ay older, and her fans, too, want to stay young along with her. True, time itself refuses to do anything to her tomboyish attitude on the stage, to make Avril think about singing of something more serious or mature. Just like a decade ago, her music is teenage punk-rock, one in high demand and catching like a beautiful banner of perpetual youth. This is why Avril Lavgine is a complex system where nothing is supposed to be changed, including her image, music and lyrics. Avril’s first serious effort to thwart this balance, demonstrated on Goodbye Lullaby, will delight those fans who expected her to something new. They will like her determination, desire to do something different. But the arrival of this album may signal the departure of a whole epoch or era in Avril’s history, together with that Avril whom we all loved and remembered for ever.