Avril Lavigne is back, and so is pop-punk
CBC
It's 2003, and in an almost painful display of 2000s fashion, an 18-year-old Avril Lavigne is walking to the Junos stage with her signature sweatbands, conch-shell necklace and smudged eyeliner.
Though she was up for six trophies that night (four of which she would take home, including album and new artist of the year), it was just her first time at the awards. It had also been less than a year since the Napanee, Ont., teen released her first album, Let Go, nabbed five Grammy nominations and became one of the most popular Canadian musicians ever.
And now, twenty years later and with a comeback album just released, Lavigne is headed back to the Junos — though this time just to perform. And even though she's released five other studio albums since then, and been nominated — and even won — at the Junos as recently as 2020, this is still definitely a comeback.
"I've said that I feel that it's probably the most alternative from front to back," Lavigne said of her new album in an interview with CBC. "[It's] the record I've always wanted to make, and it was just like, so easy and effortless."
Love Sux, Lavigne's new album, is a return to the modern pop-punk style she popularized, but subtly strayed away from in subsequent years. It's the route she used to help bring the pop-punk genre into the mainstream — especially as a space for women and girls.
Because, even outside the screaming crowd in Corel Centre that night in 2003 and the impossible-to-escape dominance of her songs Complicated and enduring earworm Sk8er Boi, she had an impact on how people lived their lives. So much so that both then — and years afterward — you'd likely see her influence as soon as you walked out the door.
And if looking back at Avril gives flashbacks of early-2000s fashion, it's only because she made it that way — something she noticed way back at one of her very first concerts in Vancouver, even before her trip to the Junos.
"I remember at that show, being in my dressing room and peeking out of the window and seeing a line of people coming into the show," she said. "And they were all dressed like me, in like, neckties and the white tank top and the black eyeliner.... it was just, it was crazy."
Right beside Ashlee Simpson, and fellow Canadians Skye Sweetnam and Fefe Dobson, the "pop-punk princesses" helped to break down what women could look like as pop-stars, and even what kind of music they could make. And beyond the necktie-as-necklace looks and Home Hardware shirt that started selling nationally only because she appeared on SNL wearing one, that influence is showing up again in a big way.
"First of all, I want to thank Avril for coming here today," Olivia Rodrigo announced, seconds after Lavigne presented her with a songwriter of the year award at the Variety Hitmaker's Brunch in December of 2021. "I am such a massive fan of you. I look up to you so much, so, this is so surreal for me."
Then 18, Rodrigo was starting her career at just about the same age as Lavigne, which Lavigne herself said is only one of the parallels between them. And just a few months later, Rodrigo would invite Lavigne onstage with her to play Complicated, a track she listed as a direct inspiration for her breakout song Good 4 U.
It's just part of the pop-punk resurgence spilling back into the mainstream. It's been fuelled partly by the emergence of TikTok as musical tastemaker, which has in effect both greatly reduced the premium of new songs over "catalogue music," and prioritized the catchy chorus over all else.
It's also helped younger listeners discover and share that rebellious, pop-inflected sound. And at the same time, it's helped contemporary artists like Willow Smith (who last year recorded a single, G R O W, with Lavigne) and pop-punk band Meet Me @ The Altar (who are partially dedicating their new album to her) co-opt the style, while also using the rebellious and self-confident attitude that the genre, and Lavigne in particular — put on the map.
"Us writing our own songs, we've really been taking inspiration from [Avril], and trying to be unique too," Meet Me @ The Altar guitarist Téa Campbell said in an interview with CBC. "We want to bring something new to the table, just like she did."
