There is no guilt with pop music.
Some girl, probably at Larry’s or Skully’s, told me Avril Lavigne is her “guilty pleasure.” The same thing has been said about every pop group since the Bee-Gees, where people reduce an artist like Avril Lavigne to something they have to hide behind their collections of old standards. To avoid some kind of shame from having them discovered and their musical taste questioned.
But there should be no remorse or shame in liking music that is made to be liked. Pop music is not made to get deep into or think hard about. It is made to dance to when one comes home from a long day.
It is what it is.
I had seen footage of Lavigne before, and there is something about her shows that make them solid.
A good show doesn’t have to be unforgettable by being filled with special effects or a healthy dose of rage and anger. Hers are refreshing because they aren’t overly intellectual and tortured. And thankfully, they aren’t filled with blasé detachment and guys wearing ironic T-shirts, as so many concerts are these days.
Avril Lavigne is not detached from her music. She believes every one of her messages on her album. Her music is an integral part of who she is and, maybe more importantly, who she wants to be.
Sure, she could use some collared shirts, fewer bracelets and a little less image-consciousness, but she likes what she’s doing. She’s enjoyable, pure and simple.
So I was excited to see her show.
Avril’s voice is strong and seems comfortable on stage. She realizes the appropriate relationship of musician to audience, unlike the bands who seem to think it’s a privilege for fans to come and see them, rather than the other way around.
However, as much as I talked up the show and defended her music to people with “guilty pleasures” who don’t get pop, the show was somewhat disappointing.
Maybe it was that I felt old and out of place beside hundreds of screaming schoolgirls. Maybe it was the watered-down, post-mall core fundamentals: camo prints, words written in stiff, army-block lettering and knit cotton beanies.
But for whatever reason, I did not fall in love as I thought I would. I didn’t stay for the encore or even feel like trying to finagle my way past the guards backstage to interview her.
It wasn’t her performance, which was actually solid. It wasn’t her songs, which came through in concert really well.
It was something I couldn’t put my finger on.
A show with someone who only has one album is always a little anti-climactic. There was only so much she could do with what she had — 12 songs that get so much air-play all one needs to identify her is the chorus to “Complicated” before people say, “Ohhh, her!”
But maybe the reason the show was a disappointment was because of the underlying flip-side to music that’s easy to like: it’s also easy to forget; easy to get bored with.
Since there is no school of thought justifying pop music like there is in jazz or classical — and because someone like Avril Lavigne resists overanalysis — the burden is solely on the artist to move listeners and make it work.
Pop music is like a crush — one is susceptible and vulnerable to all the little things they don’t even realize they are noticing. And if those little things aren’t there, for whatever reason, the show can’t hit like one thought it would, no matter how bad one wants it to.
