Avril Lavigne coming to town on the wave of a teen pop empire

[Captain Barbossa]

The battle may continue to rage over the state of the music industry. Meanwhile, however, teen pop stars are raking in the dough, having a grand time fiddling while Rome burns, and generally behaving as if this whole “death of the music industry” thing is nothing more than a wild conspiracy theory.

Thank Disney, or blame them if you prefer. But the company – which has its own 24-hour station on XM Satellite Radio – has found its niche through multilimbed marketing to kids, adolescents, and even consumers in their later teens.

Hence Hannah Montana, the alias for Miley Cyrus, daughter of country-pop songwriter and star Billy Ray Cyrus, and heiress apparent to the throne once held by Avril Lavigne, the pop-punk princess who brings her traveling roadshow to HSBC Arena on Saturday evening.

There’s also “High School Musical,” “Grease” for its targeted generation, and a massive industry unto itself, with a hit sequel already under its belt, another one on the way to movie theaters, a pair of multi-platinum soundtracks, and a handful of ancillary offshoot careers for some of its stars.

Nickelodeon and Disney compete for the attention of the teen, tween and kiddie dollar – which is really your dollar, parents – but clearly, the two are feeding off of each other. Radio Disney is a landlocked hit-making panacea for teen-pop. Most of its artists are tied in to either Disney or Nickelodeon, among them the Jonas Brothers, Cyrus/Montana, Emily Osment, Aly & AJ, Lucas Grabeel, Mitchel Musso, Corbin Bleu, Drake Bell, Raven and the Cheetah Girls.

All of these artists sell more product in the present day than Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, the Arcade Fire and various other artists generally considered creators of more serious musical art.

Anti-Britney?

In a recent interview in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lavigne described her show as bigger than the past, with “dancers on a couple of songs, and LED screens, and I’m going to have checkered flooring. I have a pink sparkle drum kit, a pink piano, flags.”

And while Lavigne’s initial success posited her as an anti-Britney Spears, a pop star who also happened to be a real musician and songwriter, she’s still forced to answer questions about it.

“My songs aren’t bubble-gum pop dance songs, and I don’t have background dancers on every single song like them,” Lavigne told the paper, referencing Spears, Christina Aguilera and the like.

“I’m not wearing a headphone microphone on my head. It’s a totally different thing. There’s dancing on maybe like four songs, and it’s not really much dancing. It’s very me; it’s very kicking and punching and stomping and marching, stuff that I was always doing on stage. And then it’s me playing my guitar, me on the piano, me with my band the entire show, and then at the end [the dancers] come in again, so it’s not a lot … It’s not over the top too much.

“The show is very me, it rocks. It’s just the next level.”

Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa Fashion

Interestingly, much of what passes for teen-pop today would have been considered at least mildly shocking before Lavigne arrived back in 2002, with her mall-friendly blend of slick pop hooks and watered-down punk rock, as indelibly captured on the mega-hit “Sk8er Boi.”

“Let Go,” as that debut album is known, has by now sold in excess of 16 million copies. The record landed on a winning formula by presenting itself as attitude-heavy punk for kids who had never heard of the Sex Pistols or the Clash, and probably wouldn’t be allowed to listen to them if they had. In reality, “Let Go” was immaculately produced pop music assembled by a team of forensic production specialists, and about as punk rock as a Bon Jovi album. It couldn’t miss.

As is always the case, with this particular bubble-gum music revolution came a recontextualization of fashion sense.

Lavigne’s sleeveless T-shirt-with-skinny-new-wave-tie, heavily eyelined aloof gaze, and skater-kid taste in jeans and sneakers moved off of her debut album cover and straight into the mall.

It’s no accident that, a mere five years after Lavigne broke, Kohl’s department store now has its own line of Radio Disney clothing. So now you can watch, say,

“My songs aren’t bubble-gum pop dance songs, and I don’t have background dancers on every single song like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.”

“High School Musical 2” on the Disney Channel, buy the accompanying sound-track disc – or better yet, grab it off the Internet, or purchase it from iTunes – and head to the mall to buy the outfit Zac Efron or Vanessa Hudgens wore in the movie. It’s brilliant, really.

Not to be outdone, Lavigne announced in early March her own line of clothing, called “Abbey Dawn,” after her childhood nickname, and according to what Lavigne told SparkeleStarNews.blogspot.com, consisting of “a lot of hot pinks and blacks and stars and purple and zebra.” Sounds an awful lot like a bad Prince video from the ’80s. But hey, most of the kids in the target market for Lavigne’s “Abbey Dawn” line weren’t even born when “Little Red Corvette” was a hit.

Oh, and by the way, the Lavigne line will be available exclusively at Kohl’s.

Oops, I did it again

Lavigne, who released her third album, “The Best Damn Thing,” last April, has had to balance her massive commercial success with nagging questions circulating through the media concerning her musical credibility. (Did this happen to the Bay City Rollers in the ’70s? Probably. But who buys a pint of cookie dough ice cream and expects it to taste like filet mignon? Lavigne’s teen-pop fills a niche, and shouldn’t really be expected to boast musical credibility, to be fair.)

“The Best Damn Thing” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, yielding the hit “Girlfriend.”

It should surprise no one who reads liner notes on albums to ascertain songwriting credit that Lavigne is no Mozart, or even a Drake Bell. Her “art” is a result of songwriting-by-committee, and her album production the same.

However, songwriter Tommy Dunbar, founder of ’70s group the Rubinoos, found disquieting similarities between Lavigne and team’s “Girlfriend” and his band’s 1979 hit “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” Dunbar sued Lavigne and, among others, one of her songwriting collaborators, “Dr. Luke,” on the grounds that they’d plagiarized his song.

Around the same time, songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk – wife of Our Lady Peace singer Raine Maida – got a bit loose-lipped during an interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, in which she suggested that Lavigne had stolen a song from her.

“Contagious” is the name of a Kreviazuk song given to Lavigne during the recording of “The Best Damn Thing,” for consideration. It’s also the name of a song that ended up on the record, though Kreviazuk was not credited as one of its authors. Kreviazuk, if the Performing Songwriter interview is our barometer, was furious.

Songwriting/production team the Matrix, which, at the very least, co-wrote Lavigne’s breakthrough hit “Sk8er Boi” and later single “I’m With You,” has also taken shots at the singer. Matrix member Lauren Christie told Rolling Stone Lavigne did nothing more than “change a word here or there” in both cases, though she claimed writer’s credit on both songs.

The Dunbar/Rubinoos case reached an out-of-court settlement. Kreviazuk later fully recanted her statements regarding Lavigne.

Which may tell us more about Lavigne’s lawyers than it does about Lavigne, Dunbar, Kreviazuk, the Matrix, or the cryptically named “Dr. Luke.”

Punk, but safe as milk

None of the controversial press swirling around her has made any discernible difference to Lavigne’s legion of followers, nor has it done anything to cool the fever or dull the fervor of the teen-pop/watered-down punk movement Lavigne spearheaded back in 2002.

In fact, Radio Disney, Nickelodeon and Lavigne continue to expand in popularity. At this point, teen-pop is no longer a movement, a sub-genre, or a temporary fascination for your kids. It’s an empire.

jmiers@buffnews.com

[Jimmyzz]

Thanks for posting