Hey guys. I must admit to you guys that I'm an Avril Lavigne fan. I figured that this forum would be safe to discuss not just her looks, but also her music. So I was hoping that there would be a few casual Avril fans here with whom I could share my concerns regarding the current state of Avril's career.

I really liked Avril's first two albums, Let Go and Under My Skin. I always thought that she would have a bright future.

But now, I feel that Avril’s career has gone downhill.

I admit that Avril lost tons of fans after she had released The Best Damn Thing. And she perhaps lost even more during her four-year hiatus, during which time her record label refused to release any further recordings from her until she had agreed to work with Max Martin on a few songs.

But Goodbye Lullaby, her most recent album from last year, was designed to be a stripped-down "return to form". The effort was intended to win back her old fans. But that never happened. Also, the album’s lead single, What The Hell, was supposed to appeal to teens and tweens. But the song never caught on. Plus, she was unable to capture an older audience with the more mature, introspective songs that she had otherwise recorded for the album.

So in the end, Goodbye Lullaby tanked on the charts, and her US tour was canned.

It appears that the majority of Avril's fans have moved on. Teens and tweens these days don’t seem to care for her. And adult listeners just can't bring themselves to take her seriously.

Additionally, she has become unable to compete with fresher faces like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Adele. And it's more than likely that Avril's former fans had discovered and gravitated towards these newer artists.

I’m afraid that Avril is facing a steady decline in relevance, and that her fanbase has considerably dwindled.

At the same time- Britney Spears, Beyonce, P!nk, and Kelly Clarkson are still going strong.

What do you think caused Avril's career to stall? Why do you think Avril is struggling while other female artists are faring better?

Do you think that Avril is well on her way to fading into obscurity? Do you think that it would be possible for Avril to make a comeback from this commercial slump?

I was hoping if you guys could give your take on what has happened to Avril's career.

Thanks for listening, guys.

First, I have to admit I'm not that familiar with her career. The batch of singers you mention all have real talent -- except maybe for Katy who is rumored to use Autotune; and Britney lipsynchs her concerts so you don't know how real her voice is.

I've seen Avril perform quite a few times on TV, and it seems to me she can barely sing -- at least not very strongly. And she's always hiding behind the microphone which to me isn't very audience friendly. So for me at least, those are negative points. But sorry, that doesn't explain the slump.

Its hard to keep a musical career going even if you have high amounts of talent. Simply put, an artist needs to make hit songs that tops charts and sells singles. Easier said than done.

A lot of those women I mentioned don't have good voices. Taylor Swift, in particular, has a very flat voice, and she's at the top of her game.

To me, it's kind of disconcerting how people say that Avril can't sing, yet there's a lot of mediocre female singers who have no problems being successful.

Plus, all female pop artists use Auto-tune. It only becomes a problem if an artist uses too much of it.

It's very hard to tell. I know very little about music and the biz, so this is pure speculation:

Avril's voice is fine. She's no Whitney Houston but she's average or better. In other words, I don't think this has anything to do with her voice.

I do recall that when she came out, she was sort of an antithesis to Britney and the whole pop singer persona. Now, at the time I liked Britney very much but I could appreciate how Avril was offering something quite different, how she was edgy, bit of a punk, and yet with mass appeal. I thought she also had the looks and so I expected her to have a long career--not necessarily as popular all the time but nothing like fading into obscurity either.

People who sell a lot of records are not necessarily more talented or more "anything" compared to Avril. Sometimes it's about marketing, about what big record companies and producers want and consider profitable and where they will direct most their advertising, and what the fans want, etc. I also think the hiatus often hurts a new singer's career. Unless you come back with a BANG and promote the hell out of the new record.

Either way, she's still young and there is time for her to try again.

Well, one album that doesn't sell as well as the others is hardly a career collapse. Goodbye Lullaby was still certified Gold or Platinum in more than 10 countries.

As was well reported, she had to fight to get the record company to release the album, and that with long delays, and then they barely promoted it, so it's not too much of a surprise it didn't sell all that well.

Plus, music fans are fickle, lots of otherwise popular artists have an album that doesn't do as well for whatever reason. It happens. I'm sure she'll be back on top with the next one.

Avril's in a tough position too because for some odd reason people love to hate on her. If she changes anything, from her style to her sound people complain that she's sold out, or changing to try to stay relevant, or a poseur, or whatever. But if she doesn't change then people complain that she's still the same and needs to grow up, etc. Can't win.

I'm glad you mentioned that.

I get ridiculed a lot by others for listening to Avril. The general public regards her as a "pop tart". People see her is a manufactured product with a marketable image and very little talent. They also say that she is just another teen idol who is destined for irrelevance.

On the other hand, people don't seem to have a problem with other female pop artists like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, P!nk, and Kelly Clarkson. Fans of these female artists usually aren't met with such a harshly negative reaction like Avril fans are. The public doesn't view these women as "pop tarts" who will eventually fade away. It seems as though these women get more praise from the public than Avril does.

For example, Avril gets criticized for her immature behavoir, and for her juvenile songs and lyrics. Yet, Pink drops S-bombs and F-bombs in Raise Your Glass; comes up with lyrics like “slam slam oh hot damn”; comes up with song titles like F***ing Perfect and U + Ur Hand; rides a lawnmower on stage; has had pink hair; and...well...uses the stage name “P!nk” with an exclamation point embedded in it (like how Kesha uses the stage name “Ke$ha” with a dollar sign embedded in it). Additionally, I have to mention such "thought-provoking" songs as Kelly Clarkson's My Life Would Suck Without You.

Plus, Avril frequently gets lumped into the same league of teenybopper singers that includes Justin Bieber and One Direction. Yet, no one complains about how Taylor Swift has legions of teen and tween girls making up the majority of her fanbase.

Why are all the other female artists more respected by the public than Avril is? Why do people think that it’s deserving of antagonism to listen to Avril? Why do people think that it’s more tolerable to listen to all the other female singers? Why do people view Avril solely as a "teen artist" even though all the other female artists have young fanbases as well?

I understand that haters gonna hate. But the level of Avril disrespect that I encounter among everyday people is just beyond measure. It makes me think that Avril is as reviled as Justin Bieber.

How can you explain the general public's double standard regarding Avril?

I doubt there's a double standard. Just make a hit song. And get it promoted. Sounds simple, but it isn't.
Take for example Kelly Clarkson. She's been in a funk for years. Suddenly now she has a hit song and is back. Also cast in a new show too. A similar can be said of Britney.
Meanwhile Christina Aguilera has much more vocal talent. Yet her songs from recent cds have underachieved. No big hits really came from it. And another meanwhile: Katy Perry. Regardless of what is thought of her, her last CD was full of hit songs. Most #1 singles off an album since Michael Jackson.

I'm also glad you mentioned how fickle music fans are.

What gets me is that Avril has lost a lot of fans ever since she released The Best Damn Thing. A lot of people called her a "sellout" and a "hypocrite".

Worse, the fans that Avril lost have now moved on to other artists, such as Taylor Swift. These fans say that Avril "isn't the artist that they expected her to be". These fans bemoan how Avril has taken on "a Hollywood lifestyle", has changed her values, has messed up her public image, has had a questionable personal life, and has become all that she had initially claimed not to be. They also maintain that Avril has disappointed her fans, has acted immature, and has contradicted herself too much.

A lot of former Avril fans are now Taylor fans. These former Avril fans argue that Taylor is more relatable and is someone you can look up to. Plus, these fans claim that they've realized that Avril isn't a good songwriter, and that Taylor is a WAY better songwriter.

What's more disturbing is how Avril has been unable to sustain a fanbase. The fans who had hated The Best Damn Thing and had left Avril later weren't impressed with Goodbye Lullaby. They say that Goodbye Lullaby was bland and uninteresting, and had very weak lyrics. In addition, the new fans that Avril had gained with The Best Damn Thing were later bored by Goodbye Lullaby. These particular fans didn't bother to keep supporting Avril.

Would you say that all these types of fans are NOT loyal to Avril?

I would say that most music fans aren't loyal at all to any particular artist. They just like what's new and popular and being played on the radio currently (or whatever other media you prefer). And they don't give a toss about anyone's particular career arc. So if someone's not on the radio currently they're just not on most people's radar.

As for what people are saying about her - remember a lot of people on the Internet are just generally asshats, and if they can find something to complain about someone then they will.

Avril's an easy target as she doesn't play all the goody-goody "America's Sweetheart" nonsense. Plus, for some reason celebrities are never allowed to change their mind - if they say something once publicly then they have to stick by it forever or people complain that they're hypocrites. Avril was only 17 when Let Go came out, so of course she's going to have changed her mind or opinions in the intervening 10 years. It doesn't make her a hypocrite, just a normal person who changes her mind occasionally.

So I wouldn't give too much credence to people complaining about her as a lot of it is just general Internet asshattery, and then there's always a bit of mob mentality there as well - Person A says something mild, Person B then feels empowered to say something a bit stronger, Person C then ups the ante a bit more, and then all the trolls come out.

I've seen it plenty with Avril, I've also seen it with pretty much anybody else you could name, including Taylor Swift.


Album sales are a really unreliable metric to use to gauge anybody's popularity. The industry is always complaining that record sales are dropping, and Album sales are currently the lowest they've been since 2000. While they'd like us to think that's due to piracy, I think a lot of it is because the sales model used by iTunes, Amazon and similar outlets encourages buying singles more so than albums.

A few numbers from Feb 2012. I think these are just US numbers as Wikipedia says she's sold more than 30 million worldwide. I've no idea if these are correct, I'm just going to assume they are because I'm too lazy to verify each one individually.

Albums
Let Go 6,724,000
Under My Skin 3,000,000
The Best Damn Thing 1,600,000
Goodbye Lullaby 277,000

= 11601000

Singles
Complicated 1,000,000
Sk8er Boi 1,000,000
I'm With You 1,000,000
Losing Grip 500,000
Don't Tell Me 500,000
My Happy Ending 1,000,000
Nobody's Home 500,000
Keep Holding On 1,000,000
Girlfriend 3,000,000
When You're Gone 500,000
Alice 45,000
What The Hell 1,800,000
Smile 299,000

So while Let Go sold 5 million more copies than TBDT, the Girlfriend single alone sold as many copies as Complicated, Sk8er Boi and I'm With You combined. Even What the Hell, has sold nearly twice as many singles as Complicated.

Compare that against, say Christina Aguilera:

Christina Aguilera 9,142,000
Stripped 4,234,000
Back To Basics 1,700,000
Bionic 300,000

= 15376000

And Avril's not doing too badly at all. I thought Christina would have been way further ahead. I was going to compare against Taylor Swift since you specifically mentioned her, but she's got that country cross-over thing happening so that likely skews the numbers a bit.


TL;DR - screw the haters, if you like her music then enjoy it and don't worry about all the bandwagoners.