Avril Lavigne’s return is disappointing and derivative

Few names have established themselves as the legends of mainstream pop-punk. For any young person alive in the last 30 years, there is no pop-punk name as pervasively dominant as Avril Lavigne. Her iconic discography, including hits such as “Girlfriend,” “Sk8r Boi” and “What the Hell,” still resonate with many as nostalgic radio gems of the era. Avril Lavigne was undeniably the queen — the ambassador of pop-punk to the world.

Cut to 2022. Thanks to customized music streaming services and social media apps such as TikTok, popular music nowadays is twisting backward into throwbacks and expediting the careers of new artists upon their first viral hit. Thus, nostalgic genre blending, especially with pop-punk (see Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”) is as important as ever to create that familiarly digestible earworm on a TikTok sound. 

Re-entering this landscape is none other than the princess herself, Avril Lavigne, with her seventh studio album, “Love Sux.”

“Love Sux” marks a return to her roots after a brief departure to emotional, heartfelt pop in “Head Above Water.” In a recent Billboard interview, Lavigne said she “was ready to rock the fuck out,” a sentiment that could not come through more clearly during a listen-through. This album screams of catharsis for the artist after years of restraint. Was she successful?

Behind the screams — however fun — lies not much else, unfortunately. Lavigne kicks off her album with “Cannonball,” a rollicking, headbanging track that begs to be jumped around and screamed to. Full of calls to action like, “Are you ready? / Let’s go!” and rocking guitar riffs, the song announces the tone of the album and flies past too quickly to catch your breath.

Consider your breath lost for the next 30 minutes. On an album of 12 tracks, nine of them are under three minutes. It’s as though Lavigne barely opens up the opportunity to take a small bite of a song before you’re careening into the next. And, without much time spent to get to know each track, there’s not much to grasp on to or differentiate from the others.

Let’s be clear: Fans aren’t expecting a mind-blowingly deep, lyrically revolutionary album. Audiences were told pop-punk, so they were expecting pop-punk: delicious guitar-riffing, nostalgic headbanging and screamable melodies. But where Lavigne falls short is actually the standard she set for herself. Throughout the early-mid 2000s, Lavigne gave us a reason to scream about falling in love with skater boys, stealing someone’s boyfriend and never growing up. Her music didn’t need to spark philosophical debates — it was just fun and unique. 

Flash forward 20 years later, and most of the music on “Love Sux” is derivative of its predecessors. “Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending” sounds like an outro song to a 2000s teen rom-com. The lyrics are disappointingly simplistic and full of pouty lyrics like “Do you promise it’s forever? / Will you meet me up in heaven?” The distinguishably fast-paced pop-punk drums and flashy guitar riffs are fun but so are those in most of the album. “Bite Me,” one of the singles released ahead of the album, is a stock angry breakup anthem without much of a purpose other than to say, “You’re gonna wish I was your wifey.” 

Also important to note are Lavigne’s features on the album. “Bois Lie,” featuring Machine Gun Kelly, is a decent collaboration. Through a he-said-she-said dialogue, Lavigne and Kelly’s voices blend well together, and the song even boasts one of the best lyrics on the album: “You put a knife into my back and tried to write your name.”

Others, like blackbear’s feature on “Love It When You Hate Me,” are certainly more disappointing, with a generically whiny verse that sticks out against Lavigne’s shiny vocals. “All I Wanted,” featuring blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, also falls short of its intentions to be a meaningful collaboration. This is partially due to Hoppus’s lack of vocal cohesion with the song ,as well as the lack of creative quality in the track itself. These featured artists barely sounded interested in the album.

Several stand out tracks elevate the album. The titular song, “Love Sux” balances sonic innovation and pure amusement with boisterous style. The track adds high-pitched piano chords to the usual guitar-drums combination and is riddled with pop-punk squeals and yelling that truly propel the song forward. The lyrics also tell a more compelling, current story of being sick of dating, with hilarious lines such as “Let’s play a game of tic-tac-toe / I’ma go and make all my exes say ‘oh.’”

The penultimate ballad “Dare To Love Me” shows off Lavigne’s skillful vocals in a wandering melody against vulnerable, stripped instrumentals. By painting a more complex story of feeling unlovable, she captures a feeling evocative of her older ballads. Album closer “Break of A Heartache” is also successful in its experimentation, with innovative syncopation and unexpected breaks in instrumentation captivating the listener one last time.

In several ways, “Love Sux” achieves exactly its intentions: being a screamable, headbanging pop-punk album that’s just as lighthearted and fun-angry to listen to as it must be to perform. However, for a seasoned veteran such as Lavigne, who has contributed so many unique, time-capsule messages through her music, there is so much left to be desired. Music today requires more than a simplistic formula, and there is room for improvement Lavigne did not grow into.

So, while “Love Sux” would be a blast to see in concert, its disappointing execution stands as a harrowing example of music that was perhaps meant to be performed, not listened to.