MOG

Because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment I bring you Avril Lavigne's "The Best Damn Thing": A Review. Strap in, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Now I don't think it's too hard for you loyal readers to understand, but I've never owned or listened to an Avril Lavigne album ever, ever. I'm aware of her "fame" and I understand it involves wearing men's ties, wife-beaters and striped socks on her forearms. At face value one could guess that she became famous for nothing more than misunderstanding the functions of modern clothing, which I suppose in this culture could be just enough. But no, she sings and apparently has "attitude" which somehow separates her from the rest of the blonde sexpot "vocalists" in her weight class. If you ask me, which I'm going to assume you did, they're all just the leftovers from some genetic experiment to merge the DNA of Madonna and Jenna Jameson. That may be a far-fetched generalization, but there it is. So, yes, Avril; lots of eye makeup, songs about getting the ska8er bois and then dumping the hell out of them in an angsty way, "studio magic"....aaaaannnd SCENE!

Anyway, her new album is called "The Best Damn Thing" which is edgy and in-your-face-like-Chevy-Chase and I'll just skip over the obvious joke about the discrepancy between the album title and the actual content and just say this: it's got some songs on it, songs that I can almost solidly assure you she didn't write. The album itself is produced my more people than an average phone booth can hold and it guests MTV celebrity and tattoo enthusiast Travis Barker on drums. Speaking of drums, Avril apparently picked up "Word of Mouth" by Toni Basil and decided that the drums on "Mickey" were the bees knees and put them on almost every track. After the drums there's some guys playing guitar and bass in a punk-inspired and aggressive manner, they probably have shaggy hair, weigh 101lbs combined and wear white belts to hold up their women's jeans. The album starts off with the single "Girlfriend" in which Avril describes her intentions of stealing a boi from his girlfriend (like the title, see?) by using such scathing language as "She's, like, so whatever." She is indeed, Avril, she is indeed. She stops short of just calling the girlfriend a cunt and hitting her in the back of the head with a folding chair. I'll be completely surprised if the guy didn't bed Avril that very second. The rest of the album follows the same basic formula of: "I've got attitude and I'll fucking stab you." until the sweeping epic "When You're Gone" which I can only assume was written about the guy she stole in "Girlfriend" leaving her after finding out that she poisoned his ex with Roundup to get her out of the picture. It's a tender number. By the way, this is track 5 out 12. I'm going to be skipping around a bit. Besides, most of the tracks sound pretty similar anyway. I will say that picking Travis Barker was a pretty good choice because most of this album sounds like a slightly sloppier Blink 182 with a female "vocalist". I put that word in quotes because she's not really singing so much as she's yelling a melody smoothly, she could have a very pleasant voice if she toned down the Alanis Morissette growl. It just sounds weak, I mean at least Alanis has the guts to sound like a mutant zombie cat in heat. But that's just one Puff's opinion. Her best vocal, (again, in my opinion) is on "Hot". It's a song about a boi making her "hot". So "hot" that she wants to "drop". She does ok on "Innocence", the other sweeping epic. Also "Innocence" has piano, so it's more meaningful.

As for the rest of the album I'll just sum up: "I Don't Have to Try" is about wearing pants. I'm fucking serious. Here's the opening lyric (set to "We Will Rock You" style stomping: "I'm the one, I'm the one who knows the dance/ I'm the one, I'm the one who's got the prance/I'm the one, I'm the one who wears the pants./I wear the pants!" Yes, I'm serious. I'm super serious. Yes, Avril, you do have to try. At least a little bit, the studio can fix your pitch and the fumbled power chords but it can't fix shitty lyrics. Fire your writers. Or if you wrote that one, fire yourself. "Contagious" begins with a picked guitar part that is ripped-off directly from Blink 182's "What's my age again?" but it must be ok cause Travis Barker is there. "Keep Holding On" is a country-inspired ballad thing, must be a throw-back to her unfamous days as a fledgling country star. It's a poignant message to all her adoring fans, "Keep holding on, no matter what I sing, just go buy it, I wear the pants!"

Puffmagic cannot award "The Best Damn Thing" by Avril Lavigne any Rob Gordons as Rob Gordons are only applied to albums that register between "0" and ".5" This album is about a ".2" and I don't know how to display 20% of Rob Gordon's head.

No sound clip. If you want it, go get it yourself