The War On Avril
Course you've heard of her, right? Because even if, like me, you don't listen to much radio and don't have music tv, even if you've never even heard her, you'll no doubt have read about what a terrible human being she is.
Why am I writing this? Because I'm sick of having to listen to people mithering about her. Avril this, Avril that. Incessant sniping about her, seething hatred devoted to her, a mass of teenagers who shout about how superior they are to her, to mask their own inferiority complexes. There are a lot of jealous people out there. The basic story goes like this: girl gets picked up by record moguls, gets moulded into Punk Barbie and sold to the masses, sells lots of records, and becomes the most famous snotty teenager in the world. Big deal. Britney, Christina, P!nk, Avril - what's the difference? They're all making a living. That's nothing new, and you're not really interested in my opinion on any of them.
Here's another story. Kid grows up listening to Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Eminem, Sum41 and Box Car Racer. They carefully forge an individual, original style for themselves - stripy socks, converses, cut-off baggy trews, army shirts, band tees and sweatbands. They sport dog collars and fuck-off wallet chains, revelling in the knowledge that no-one else dresses like them. Meanwhile, in the next street, another kid does the same. And another one. All over the world, kids pride themselves on their store-bought induhhhviduality. Then one day, one of these kids gets picked up by record moguls, gets moulded into Punk Barbie and sold to the masses, sells lots of records, and becomes the most famous snotty teenager in the world. And all the other kids wet their pants, throw their toys out of their pram and set up anti-Avril websites to prove how h@rdc0r3 they are.
www.broken-stars.org/complicated/
www.broken-stars.org/unoriginal/
geocities.com/whatafoolavril/
Just a few of the anti-Avril sites out there. Meanwhile, on messageboards all over the world, teenagers - girls mostly, you notice... not jealous, surely? - are bitching and whining about the poser who dared to, like, get famous n stuff...like... omg... she's, like, TOTALLY not punk, she doesn't even have, like, Blink 182's back catalogue. Etc.
The first site on that list up there is the one that prompted this spontaneous rantage. It amazed me that someone [her name's Lisa by the way] had taken the time to put together a site like that. She didn't exactly knock it up in pagebuilder - there's consistent design there, and an untold catalogue of Avril photos. In fact, if you were to ignore the "moron!" and "ew!" captions underneath the photos, you could mistake it for a fansite. The time and thought that went into it is pretty remarkable. One page was entirely devoted to circling tell-tale spots and shiny bits on the girl's skin. Not that she's a teenager of course... and not that teenagers EVER get spots. I daresay Lisa's skin is completely blemishless since she started using that medication the doctor prescribed. Ahem. Anyway.
Another site rants about how her vocals and guitar parts are faked on her records. Of course they are! She's a rec-company puppet, they're hardly gonna let her do her own stuff, are they?! It's the record companies these people should be demonising - if you buy a faulty tin of beans, you don't rant and rave at the tin, do you? You complain to the manufacturer. Avril is someone's schmuck - she's selling well, and if she's clever she'll save her pennies so she has something for a rainy day - and if she isn't, a few yrs down the line she'll be another one-minute wonder working in an all-night truckstop to pay the rent.
It astonishes me that people have so much time and dedication to devote to people they claim to hate. If you don't like her... ignore her! Listen to the cds you like, wear the clothes you like, and quit fretting about whether she's "stolen" your style and "given punks a bad name" - of course she hasn't, you muppets - it's blindingly obvious to the rest of the world that she's an inoffensive, shiny little pop twinkie.
What it comes down to is, you people are snobs. You can't bear the idea of your oh-so-subversive mtv-marketed "underground culture" having its lid blown off and being exposed to the world; you can't bear the idea of becoming part of a marketing demographic. Tough. Shit happens. If you really prize your individuality, get out there and assert it creatively and originally, instead of sitting for hours in front of the Mac your mommy bought you for your 15th birthday. As for the "i was doing it first" arguments - bollocks! Most of these kids weren't even born when it was being done... original, early-days Ramones fan, were you?? Didn't think so.
Punk, that elite concept that Avril is apparently excluded from, stopped being a truly individual ethic the day it was conceived; it was a marketing exercise from the off [see Malcolm Mclaren - if you don't know what I'm on about, do some research]. Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten were no more real than Ms Lavigne - they just walked the walk better. Punk became an MTV marketing reel a long time ago - Avril Lavigne is simply the straw that's broken the camel's back, so to speak. If you've only noticed how how hollow it is now, you've had your eyes closed for a long time. I could even suggest that her appearance on the scene is a good thing, because it'll force lazy music fans to look in more interesting directions, and pick up on some of the great, more edgy music out there that isn't getting heard. If you want to stay with the safe option and listen to P!nk and Sum41, that's fine [quite partial to a bit of P!nk mself actually], but the punker-than-thou whining needs to stop.
As an afterthought, it also amazes me that these people devote so much anger to one pop puppet when there are countries being bombed into submission, extremists detonating suicide bombs in city centres, guns circulating on every street corner and all manner of other shit that clearly isn't as important as The War On Avril. If every anti-Avril clone out there was given some current affairs/politics lessons [and perhaps the odd cranial transplant where necessary], perhaps people might have a bit more of a clue about the world they live in.