But almost certainly only for the next year or two. By FAR the most common pattern in the industry for ‘artist’ female musicians (those who claim to be more than pop queens) is to support them for one album or two at the outset then move on.
It’s the same sort of mindset that leads many radio programmers to believe that a station can’t play two songs with female vocals in a row.
Look at Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morrisette, Joan Osborne, etc. The plan is to support them for one album/tour then stop the support. Check out the length of time it takes them to get the album after the big one out. And read the liner notes sometime. There’s a great many of them who mention how ‘hard’ it was to record this time.
The record business sucks in general but it sucks worse if you’re a woman.
Punk, not punk. This debate is making my head hurt. Here’s my two cents (or possibly three):
Avril Lavigne is cute (to me, maybe not to all of you) and has a nice voice (good range, pitch, and tone, technically speaking).
Her album is a lot more pop than I expected, but…
I like it.
So she doesn’t fit the classic definition of punk, which apparently involved not bathing, not knowing how to play your instruments, not knowing how to sing, and thinking you’re oh so much better than all the poor sheep because of it. Modern punk is a lot more about making good music, not necessarily caring if you become super-popular, and having fun. The Riddlin’ Kids are a good example of this. (Modern punk also includes ska, which is wonderful and definitely has people who know how to play their instruments.)
I’m sick of the elitist attitude of punk fans. I’m sick of the snobby look I get when I go to a punk show and I don’t happen to be in “uniform”. I guess someone who wears the uniform perhaps insincerely gets the same amount of scorn. I say leave the poor girl alone. If you don’t like her music, don’t listen to it. I can avoid Britney and her clones pretty easily. You can avoid Avril.
I think you’re wrong here. As I get older (I’m only 23 now, but I’ve been listening to rock music for a loooong time, relatively–since the mid-80’s), I’m continually surprised by the way the best “current” stuff transitions into “classic” stuff. The prime example would be Pearl Jam’s “Ten” album. I loved it because I was young and it was different at the time, my parents ridiculed it, etc. Listening back on it now (especially in a climate of overcalculated and overmarketed popular music), it’s just a great no-crap rock album. I like it as much now as I did then, and so does my Dad. It is holding up well to the fabled “test of time.” I doubt that Avril, Britney, Backstreet Boys, etc. will hold up so well–who today still rocks out to Menudo, or New Kids on the Block? MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice? Debbie Gibson, Tiffany? Not many (judging from the success of more recent tours/attempts by Ice and NKOTB). The nature of such entertainment is that the performers/personalities are so easily transposable and replaceable once the public grows tired of them. Even though the genre may persist, individuals eventually become an object of ridicule, then are replacedby something “edgier,” and are forgotten, only for the cycle to repeat itself time and time again. New Kids -> N’Sync/Backstreet, Vanilla Ice -> Eminem (scoff if you will, but it’s the truth), etc. etc. etc.
Debbie! Her spiked ankle boots alone would stomp out the toe of Avril’s “old school” Connies (Converse). Debbie would strangle Avril with jelly bracelets and then blind her neon.
And which definition of punk does she fit? Punk is music first–the rest is just window dressing and tools for the punker than thou’s to engage in their own brand of opression. It doesn’t matter how tall your mohawk is, if one’s record collection is nothing but country-western, then one probably shouldn’t call oneself a punk rocker. Nor is ska some sub-set of punk. Ska is a Jamaican sister of reggae. Just as Aerosmith doing a song with Run DMC doesn’t make rock into rap, the latest generation of American ska enthusiasts incorporating some “punkness” doesn’t rob ska of its own distinct category.
There may be a lot of fuzziness between punk proper, Oi!, skate punk, straight edge punk, speed metal, garage bands, hardcore punk, proto-punk and whatever else fits, but in no way is Avril putting out punk.
The full lyrics (and this definitely counts as a very small snippet of one hell of a long song) are HERE. I think the point that Jello Biafra & Co. were making condemns the “that’s not punk” crowd, but wouldn’t take kindly to the “manufactured for your enjoyment” style of faux-punk artists today, either.
To say that any new music can’t be punk because it isn’t Black Flag or DK, etc., is like saying anything new can’t be rock because it’s not Elvis or The Rolling Stones. But it’s reasonable to say that someone who has been marketed as punk and had people write “punk” songs for them to sing, isn’t exactly Henry Rollins or Joey Ramone.
But as for the basic question: Is Avril punk?
No. She’s packaged. And one reliable definition of punk is that it isn’t packaged.
I’ll give Avril Lavigne credit for what she is; an attractive young woman with a decent singing voice. But she lose points for claiming to be things she isn’t: a punk, a non-conformist, an independant, the anti-Britney, etc…
Britney Spears on the other hand is exactly what she claims to be; she’s a pop singer who doesn’t deny that it’s all a package. So in that sense, Britney Spears is more “real” than Avril Lavigne. Both have manufactured images but only one of them is admitting it.