Friesen Point’s “Bands I Wish Would Have Disappeared After Making That One Song I Kind Of Liked” #1: Avril Lavigne

That post I wrote yesterday about the Primitive Radio Gods may have accidentally spawned a new, but remarkably familiar bit.  While I was writing about how bad Avril Lavigne’s new single is, I couldn’t help but wonder how it is that she has had so many awful songs put out, and will continue to, yet King Missile and Primitive Radio Gods will never again even see the bottom of the Hot 100 list.  It’s enough to make me wonder if the days of the “One Hit Wonder” are over.  Lil Mama has a second hit, after all.

I don’t kid myself to believe that Avril writes any of her own music, but she is the product, and for some reason that’s beyond me, someone’s buying.

Take this horrible new video as an example:

This song is absolute trash.  The cheering is more irritating than the bites of a swarm of black flies.  Avril looks more drugged out than Anna Nicole.  Yet, my biggest complaint is the “entering the chorus” transition.  It just doesn’t sound right, it’s jerky.  This song is horrible, pathetic, and never should have been made.

However, oh so many years ago, Avril Lavigne put out a little ditty called “Complicated.”

That song warmed the hearts of countless young men nationwide.  Complicated was a sweet little ditty about how a girl didn’t like her man acting differently in different company.  It was youthful, innocent, and the video for the song introduced us to Avril’s patented “chicken wing” dance.  If Complicated was all I’d ever heard of Avril, she would definitely be a member of the “Songs I Miss From Bands Who’ve Disappeared” category.  Yet, because she refused to call it quits, she’s rocked herself all the way to my new category: “Bands I Wish Would Have Disappeared After Making That One Song I Kind Of Liked.”

Avril really should have hung it up after Complicated.  Instead of releasing all the shitty music she has since, I wish she would have converted to Hinduism, decided to move to an ashram on the Chota Nagpur Plateau, trading in all of her worldly possessions (most importantly, her writing notebook) in favor of yajnas and teaching at a gurukul.  She would live an ascetic life in the woods, trying to work her way up to Richi-hood.  Oh, lord, why couldn’t that have happened?  Instead, she released two more albums, featuring no less than 10 crappy singles and turned herself into a walking contradiction of what she once pretended to stand for.

Oh, Avril, how I wish you’d gotten out when you were ahead.