Avril Lavigne shows she has the high school narrative down pat

[miriam]

Think of Avril Lavigne's music as a high-school serial in progress, a teen idyll filled with shopping, coolness and boyfriends. Sure, moments of heartbreak and loneliness intrude on the good times, but they don't prompt a lot of dwelling. In the ever-present now of Lavigne's punky pop and power balladry, today rules and yesterday is so last week.

Because Lavigne got her record deal at age 16, she has limited actual exposure to the rabbit warren of classrooms, playgrounds and hall lockers. But thanks to MTV, the Disney channel and teen slasher movies, high school is now as much a state of mind as it is a set of defined set of experiences.

Lavigne, 23, showed about 6,000 people on Sunday night at Cruzan Amphitheatre how expert she's become at enforcing the accepted high-school narrative. In concert she combined cheerleader beats and briefly pensive mood tunes with a visual palette straight off the shelves at Hot Topic.

The songs themselves were a mall spree of appropriated styles. Girlfriend, the opener, basically reiterated Mickey, Toni Basil's bouncy, swooning hit from 1982. He Wasn't tracked another jittery stand-by, Billy Idol's Dancing with Myself. If we didn't already know it from hearing No Doubt, Lavigne reminds us that in mainstream pop and rock music, '80s new wave has become the foundational language of teen-aged excitability

Lavigne ventured into the '90s for the downtempo fare. Losing Grip got its somber, sliding guitar riff from the Creed and Days of the New catalogues. On Innocence and Don't Tell Me, Lavigne modeled her vocalizing on fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette's melismatic yodel.

With so much synthesis of other people's work going on, it was easy to wonder whether Lavigne has any musical ideas of her own. Her least borrowed trait is a kind of fierce, determined careerism one sees in a lot of rappers. Lavigne doesn't sing with the joy or giddiness of a Gwen Stefani or Toni Basil. She projects defiance and confidence. Even in the outwardly good-humored I Always Get What I Want, there was a hard stare that said defeat is unacceptable.

At 23, Avril Lavigne shows she has the high school narrative down pat -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

[tinkril]

hmmmmmm I don't really get it

[defg332]