Customer Reviews

Goodbye Lullaby

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

For an older guy like me, Avril Lavigne's first two albums were the ultimate guilty pleasure; I couldn't resist her infectious brand of rock despite her youth and the average age of her fans.

While I didn't much care for the direction of 2007's The Best Damn Thing, I still recognized her undeniable talent and remained hopeful her music would mature as she grew older.

Goodbye Lullaby is quite different from her previous releases, mainly from the standpoint that most of the musical rock edginess and looseness is no longer present. This is a collection of simple & repetitive, mid tempo, light pop songs. You'll hear a lot of strings and electronic percussion, familiar pop rock chord progressions and melodies, and thankfully a minimum amount of crazy special effects. If you were hoping for more upbeat, catchy pop hits like "What The Hell", you're basically out of luck. Don't get me wrong, there are hooks all over this album. But the songs seem to lack power, and it certainly doesn't help that there are no distorted guitars to be heard.

While the majority of tracks are very similar, a few do stand out. It's hard to not get excited listening to "Push", a song that really pushes Avril's vocal range, and good luck getting the chorus of "Wish You Were Here" out of your head after you've heard it a couple of times. Its triple-trifecta of hook phrases ("Damn, damn, damn", "here, here, here" and "near, near, near") is the finest example of crafty pop songwriting on the album. "Not Enough" includes real drums, good dynamics and edge, easily making it my personal favorite. "Remember When" and "Goodbye" are respectable ballads, containing perhaps the two finest vocal performances from Avril on the record. "Remember When" builds in intensity and is wonderfully melodic, and the excellent falsetto on "Goodbye" is something I haven't heard from her before.

A different approach to production would have helped this record, and Avril Lavigne is capable of much better. But overall, this is still an album I believe most fans will enjoy.

Avril Lavigne built a strong fanbase and then caught herself in something of a conundrum: her first album was a pop/rock fusion with catchy radio tunes such as "Sk8er Boi" and "Complicated" mixed in with darker fare like "Unwanted" and "I'm with You"; her second album was a raw, darker rock sound with excellent hooks and still one or two pop sounds ("He Wasn't", anyone?). Then, something changed -- literally, everything. "The Best Damn Thing" was Lavigne's third album and saw her with blonde hair streaked with pink, and every song on the album drenched in goopy bubblegum pop. With this move, Lavigne's fanbase seemed to split itself in two: those who were perfectly fine with the 'new Avril' and those who desperately wanted to see her 'return to herself.'

"Goodbye Lullaby", the oft-delayed, much-anticipated fourth album from the challenging singer-songwriter, is both a rich return to roots, a powerful maturation of what we've already seen, and also a simple look at life.

There's been some genuine criticism of "Lullaby" from critics who decry the simplicity of the songs, but one of the complete charms of the album is that it genuinely feels like Lavigne invited listeners into her living room while she sat at her piano or strummed her guitar. There's no grand procession of chords because Lavigne cannily realised, she didn't need them. "Lullaby" is not just a song detailing her failed marriage, it's a firm introspection on how far she's come from the teenage mall-punk she started out as. The singer stated herself that most of the songs were written in her bed or whatever hotel room she was staying in, and it truly, truly shows.

But there's still so much of the Avril that we all have come to know and love over the years as well. "What the Hell", written with Max Martin, could have jumped right off of "The Best Damn Thing", while the Alanis-like kiss-off "Smile" reaches back to the feel of "Under My Skin", and for those thirsting for the innocence of "Let Go" tracks such as "Things I'll Never Say" is echoed in "Darlin'", a song written by Lavigne when she was still fifteen years old. Opening up with the oddly eerie piano tinkle "Black Star" written for Lavigne's new fragrance line before moving into the rest of the album, "Goodbye Lullaby" has proven itself to be perhaps Lavigne's best album yet.

Intimate, beautiful, and above all simple, "Lullaby" lets go of all of the old tricks while still echoing everything that made Lavigne likable in the first place. Sad and introspective yet never whiny, gorgeous tracks like "Wish You Were Here" and "4 Real" are longing ballads, while "Not Enough" is perhaps one of the best musings of the album as Lavigne comes to grips with the fact that some relationships fail, despite love still being there, through no real fault of the participants. Her ex-husband Derrick Whibly is a member of Sum 41 and his presence was overpowering in the music of "The Best Damn Thing"; on "Lullaby" he is a gentle guider and also a phantom hovering over the most longing ballads while still allowing Lavigne to poke a bit of fun with "Smile" and "What the Hell".

"Goodbye" is the true lullaby of the album and the sweeping piano ballad that provided the album's name, bringing everything to a close as Lavigne stretches her vocals beyond what we've really heard before. An extremely good decision was to provide a bonus track of sorts and close the album with the power ballad "Alice" that Lavigne wrote for the 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland". The song puts Lavigne in the point-of-view of Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland and making the decision to control her own fate and take charge of her life. It's a powerful song and the extended version with a whole new verse provides an uplifting, beautiful end to the album as she assures the world that she is, indeed, alright.

"Goodbye Lullaby" is far from a perfect album - the chords aren't too terribly original and the lyrics aren't going to be winning any awards for poetry anytime soon. But the simplicity of the album is its true strength, as Lavigne wrote every song herself (or at least had a heavy hand in them). She invited her listeners in on the most intimate record she's yet produced, and while critics may not have been impressed it was everything that her fans have been waiting for, perhaps joining the fans of the split-personality-Avrils together again and proving that this is one artist with true staying power. If anything, "Goodbye Lullaby" is a powerful break-up album with quite a few standouts, and a marvellous entry into Lavigne's discography.

I eagerly await her fifth album and I, for one, feel justly rewarded in waiting for the release of "Goodbye Lullaby" after skipping out on "The Best Damn Thing".

Five out of five stars.

This new CD from Avril Lavigne is completely different than her three previous albums. This is is full of ballads and for the most part are well written. Standouts include Push, Goodbye, Wish You Were Here, Stop Standing There, and Smile. This album, while unique, sounds more like her first album, if any. It took a couple of listens to get hooked but on the third time I found myself digging the new sound. I enjoyed this album two-fold more than The Best Damn Thing because this album is personal and has a deeper feel to it. I'd really like to see these as acoustic numbers during her next tour. Try it!

Avril Lavigne releases her best album yet! The world of female dance artists in popular culture is a touched market that's for sure. With Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, it's very easy to not be able to tell them all apart, especially if you're not a follower of the genre.

Then you get Avril Lavigne, an artist among the bunch who does stand out. And with her new album release "Goodbye Lullabye" she does just that tenfold. She stands out and not with marketing, dancers, lights and sex. No she does something else, she focuses on the music. This didn't come without a fight from her record company of course. They pushed her to make a dance record since that's where the money is. Avril decided to instead let it sit on a shelf for a year not releasing it at all until they gave in.

Having just recently ended a relationship Avril cracks herself open and raw to reveal a greater more mature album to date. Every track is better than the last. This is saying a lot since her weakest track is the bubbly poppy single release, "What the Hell". I hoped the rest of the album wouldn't be that way and luckily it's not! It's more rock and more Avril back to her roots. It's emotional. It's melodic. It's forceful and strong.

She took a nosedive with her last release four years ago with "The Best Damn Thing". An album which I put up there as not one of her best. I felt she sold out to the teen queen pop machines the music industry has been force feeding us for ten years. Now she comes back with what I consider to be her best work to date.

Avril is different in each of their albums... LG A rebel punk girl, UMS a depressed rock girl, TBDT a funny pop punk girl, and now GL she's an emotional girl with dreams and illusions.. But always, she retains its essence.

I love this album, it's really personal, She tells to the world how she felt in different moments..She talks about love, when you love in secret, when you break up, etc ... "Smile" for example: I identify myself with that song...

Definitely a good singer!

I have to say that I like every song on this album. It took awhile for "4Real" to grow on me,but after the 3rd or 4th time listening to it,I started to like it.
I agree with Avril,the album is a lot more raw than her older stuff which is why some are saying it's "simple" or "lacking". I definitely miss her guitar driven songs though.There really wasn't much edge to this album (lyrically and musically).
Anyway, I think this album was very well written and produced. I love songs that are raw and stripped down.
I'm really hoping on her next album that she goes back to an edgier type of sound with a good mixture of soft songs like these.

I love this cd! Avril Lavigne is such a good singer and I am such a big fan! This cd is the best it is my most played cd!

I have been a fan of Avril Lavigne since 2003, so not quite the hardcore fans who were with her since the very beginning, but I do love her. I was so disappointed with The Best Damn Thing, but I still found things to love about it. The few truly mature songs on there (Innocent especially, but I also didn't think Contagious and Hot were all that bad) were pretty good. The real problem I had with it was the letdown. I loved Let Go; was crazy over Under My Skin; The Best Damn Thing was just kind of...sad. I actually felt bad for her.

I hoped with all my heart that her next CD would be better. I remember reading an article that said she was getting more and more mature with every year, and that this album would be far more mature than her third one. I was really excited!--and then What the Hell was released. That was almost as bad as the letdown of her third CD. But I still had faith.

I started listening to this album today. I will probably not stop listening to it for several weeks now. I am really, really pleasantly surprised with this. I think the only song I dislike is What the Hell. Hey, what the hell, I'll just delete it!

Please, Avril, listen to these reviews. Go back to that maturity and vocal strength of your first and second CDs. Don't sell out to the masses, enough people listen to you because you're good, and people need to listen to that goodness some more. Never stop making GOOD MUSIC, please!!

This CD is absolutely amazing. Every song on it is great and in my opinion this is her best cd yet. I would recommend this to anyone.

Avril delivers a raw pop album with honest lyrics and pure music. She's all about her vocal abillities and forgets about the popular outo-tune. She stays true tu her roots ignoring the popularity of electronic music. Its great listening to good classic pop-rock music. Amazing album. Favorites:3,5,9,12.