Album Review: The Best Damn Thing by Avril Lavigne

This sense of entitlement will surely rankle anybody who's just a little bit older than Avril's 22 years, who will also find that the perennial Lavigne complaint holds: she ain't no punk, she's a brat that any grizzled old punk will want to beat with a baseball bat. (How do you know if you're one of the old guys? If you recognize the chorus of "Girlfriend" as a total lift from the Rubinoos' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," you're an old guy, even if you're 20. ) But The Best Damn Thing wasn't made for them, nor was it made with any sense (or even regard) for the past: it was made to exist totally in the moment, in a time when a moment speeds by faster than light.

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For most former teenage pop stars, the third album means one thing: time to grow up, either by removing more clothes or singing more ballads. Not so for Avril Lavigne. As a teenager, she made angst-pop, all surly rebellion and misfit power. Now, as a married woman of 22, she has let her inner teenager run riot: The Best Damn Thing is a high-octane blast on which she is having the time of her life.

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So this is Avril as an old married woman. ”Get out my face/You’re not my taste…/ Don’t ask why/Goodbye!” the 22-year-old veteran taunts before dissolving into giggles at the end of ”I Can Do Better,” a pop-punk kiss-off on The Best Damn Thing, her third album. ”I wear the pants!” she announces in the even more furiously paced ”I Don’t Have to Try” — adding, ”Don’t you disagree/’Cause you know it’s all about me.

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Review Summary: The fact that she doesn’t try to make every track downbeat and super-personal makes The Best Damn Thing one of the more emotionally honest albums of the year.Irony and pop music just don’t mix.Ask John Lennon, he knows. Hell, ask Alanis Morissette. Ask her what irony even means.‘Girlfriend’ is the lead single and opening track from Avril Lavigne’s third album The Best Damn Thing, the follow-up to the psycho depressive teen from hell soundtrack that was 2004’s Under My Skin.

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Times may be tough in rock & roll, but country gals are rollin' in clover … and packing heat. Don't cross East Texan Miranda Lambert, or she'll pump you full of "Gunpowder & Lead," the 23-year-old's response to the domestic dustup of sophomore LP Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's airbrushed opener. Turning Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' "Dry Town" into a breezy boozehound anthem might log her more CMT time than that Coyote Ugly show, but Lambert's country credentials are secured by her and Travis Howard's "Guilty in Here": "Is it guilty in here, or is it just me?" If that's too Cheaters for you, try a spring fling with lingerie-clad Elizabeth Cook.

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