Avril Lavigne
Goodbye Lullaby
Release Date: Mar 8, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Teen Pop
Record label: RCA
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Album Review: Goodbye Lullaby by Avril Lavigne
Fairly Good, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
Avril Lavigne is a romantic. That's a hard concept to wrap your mind around. For nearly a decade, she has been pop's most unregenerate grump, sneering contempt for everything over bubblegum-punk hooks. Her latest hit, "What the Hell," offers more of the same: Avril in mean-girl mode, inflicting psychological torment on her boyfriend.
Based on rating B-
Avril Lavigne — like her breakthrough single from 2002 — is, in a word, complicated. The diminutive Canadian with the gargantuan voice has made a career sk8ing the line between pop and punk, cannily switching her target from charts to hearts and back again. For a time, it seemed the former had prevailed: 2007’s The Best Damn Thing was a candy-coated collection of prefabricated, post-feminist party-starters written with proven hit-makers — and halfheartedly dismissed by Avril as ”just songs” (burn!).
Based on rating 6/10
Maturity already proven to be Avril Lavigne’s bugaboo way back in 2004 when she stumbled through a Chantal Kreviazuk co-written sophomore set called Under My Skin, the former mall punk once again returns to reflection for her fourth album, 2011’s Goodbye Lullaby. The occasion for introspection is Lavigne’s divorce from Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley, who has some presence as a producer and phantom on Goodbye Lullaby, sometimes even standing at the helm for a lovelorn, regretful tune. Lavigne has songwriting credits on every cut here, bearing sole responsibility for half of the tunes.
Based on rating 5/10
Avril Lavigne’s new album Goodbye Lullaby lacks the roller-skating euphoria of her last one, 2007’s The Best Damn Thing. Lullaby only has two rabid cheerleader rants, where Best Damn Thing was full of them. Though Lullaby boasts plenty of slow-to-midtempo love songs, none of them are what you might term “power ballads”. They’re more what you might term “four-chord guitar ballads on serious themes”.
Based on rating 2.5/5
After Avril Lavigne moved in a more decidedly pop direction on The Best Damn Thing, Goodbye Lullaby finds the erstwhile mall punk once again trying her hand at a more mature record. Though she’s brought in top-tier pop producers like Max Martin and Butch Walker, the results really aren’t any more impressive than they were on her sophomore effort, Under My Skin. Lavigne can pull off a bratty sneer well enough, but she simply isn’t convincing when she attempts to sing about anything more substantial than a perceived social slight.
Opinion: Fairly Good
Self-effacing fourth album from the Canadian star, but lacking authenticity. Al Fox 2011 From tomboy to rebel to self-proclaimed motherf***ing princess, it’s perhaps unsurprising that album number four from Canada’s kid sister Avril Lavigne sees her endeavour for maturity. In Goodbye Lullaby, however, she’s overshot the runway just a tad. Where third album The Best Damn Thing was a retrograde, even contradictory move – albeit with victorious results – the candyfloss-rock lead single What the Hell would suggest Goodbye Lullaby directly snatches the baton.
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