Avril Lavigne kicked off her final album, 2013’s self-titled LP, with a lead single known as “Here’s to Never Growing Up,” which — as you possibly can most likely think about even if you happen to’ve by no means heard the highest 20 hit — celebrated staying up all night time, hitting up outdated haunts and getting drunk on no matter liquor you may get your arms on.
More than a decade faraway from the youthful sneer of “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi” on the time, Lavinge made it clear that even when she wasn’t instantly spinning her bratty teen antics into ear sweet, she might at the least make songs about remembering that particular person — and perhaps even making an attempt to nonetheless be that particular person. (What is “Hello Kitty,” a track from that very same album, if not proof that with sufficient dedication, you can also act like an obnoxious 17-year-old once more?) In one away or one other, Lavigne’s music at all times took you again to the summer time of 2002 quicker than a track actually known as “2002” ever might.
But with the primary style of her long-awaited sixth album, “Head Above Water,” Lavigne has gone and made a very grown-up track. The 33-year-old’s music has actually by no means lacked drama, however right here, the battle to remain alive is not strictly metaphorical: The track instantly addresses her struggles with Lyme illness, which have stored her out of the general public for the previous few years.
“It can be the primary track I wrote from my mattress throughout one of many scariest moments of my life,” she wrote in a letter to fans announcing the single. “I had accepted loss of life and will really feel my physique shutting down. I felt like I used to be drowning. Like I used to be going underneath water and I simply wanted to come back up for air…. Unable to breathe. Praying to God for Him to assist me simply maintain my head above the water.” While mendacity in her mom’s arms, she began to show these emotions into lyrics, and finally introduced them to co-writers Travis Clark and Steven Moccio.
The track they got here up with checks few of the packing containers of a quintessential Avril Lavigne single. While she hardly shunned slower or extra stripped-down materials throughout her 5 studio albums to date — “I’m With You” is without doubt one of the largest hits of her profession — Lavigne’s discography has principally been outlined by upbeat, in-your-face guitar-based pop-punk tunes, and the string-backed piano balladry of “Head Above Water” is a break even from her softer materials. That’s actually acceptable for what she’s singing about — a grave story deserves, nicely, not than the sort of Toni Basil-aping beat you’d discover on her 2007 smash “Girlfriend.” But the track might additionally sign one thing of a slate-clearing for a singer recognized for a really particular persona in an trade that has modified seismically since her final album.
There’s a historical past of pop artists releasing emotionally charged, intimate piano ballads as a technique to set the stage for a rebranding following tough chapters of their private lives: Just take a look at Demi Lovato, whose 2011 ballad “Skyscraper” helped her escape of the Disney field by seemingly touching upon the “bodily and emotional points” that led her to hunt remedy the earlier 12 months. Or take a look at Kesha, who dismantled the hard-partying, dentists’-worst-nightmare character followers met on “TiK ToK” with “Praying,” which alluded to her authorized battle towards former producer Dr. Luke and teased an album that sounded little like her earlier data. Sometimes in pop, you possibly can entice extra consideration with a whisper than a shout. (Or in Kesha’s case, a totally bonkers high note.)
Of course, it is method too early to inform whether or not “Head Above Water” is a correct indication of what the remainder of the file seems like. It’s fully potential that the track is the musical equal to a TV present’s “beforehand on” section — only a somber catch-up about the place she’s been, with a extra typical single ready within the wings with hair streaked pink and center fingers all warmed up. Lavigne has worked on new music with Lauren Christy, who, as one half of The Matrix manufacturing crew, co-wrote Lavigne’s early hits, and the remainder of the album’s rollout might nonetheless choose up the place Lavigne left off in 2013 (or 2003), each artistically and commercially. But perhaps “Head Above Water” is asserting one thing greater than only a comeback; right here, it seems like Lavigne is aiming for a reset.
