Join the Avrilution!

January 23, 2003 8:04 PM

Tired of listening to the music that The Man thinks you should be hearing? Think that kids should wear what they want to wear, even if certain ballet-dancing-snobs disagree? Sick of being forced to spell the words "skater" and "boy" like your teachers told you to in high school? Then the Avrilution is for you. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids (23 comments total)

This is one of the sharpest bits of satire I've seen on the Internet in quite some time. Check out the responses by the moderators in the forums to those who don't get the joke to see exactly what I mean.

I'll be honest - I had no idea who this person was until a couple weeks ago. Having read a little about her and listened to two of her songs, I'm quite amused that her primary message seems to be "be yourself, no matter what others think," when she apparently started her career as a Canadian country singer, but moved to "punk" because her label thought it would move more records.

I'm also impressed by the savvy displayed in the handling of her image; she's a teenybopper for the teens who hate Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. There's probably an incredibly profound and paradoxical realization hidden in this, but I don't have the energy to extract it.
posted by UKnowForKids at 8:10 PM on January 23, 2003

Brilliant.
posted by holloway at 8:15 PM on January 23, 2003

I have to admit, I agree with your insights into her image, but there are some good tracks on her album. Good production and marketing will get you anyplace ;-)

Notice that Christina Aguilera's image is changing too. She's shifting rapidly away from teenybopper to the 'I'm a real person who burps and farts, so do what you want and be nice to each other' image that Lavigne created.

And this site is really just a giant troll *g* It's funny how trolling on the Web is 'satire', but doing it on Slashdot is, well, just called 'trolling' ;-)
posted by wackybrit at 8:24 PM on January 23, 2003

I had this in my post queue, but also related if you're interested is the PBS Frontline Episode : Merchants of Cool (viewable windows media and real player files). Chicken and egg really, does the media create what's cool, or do the teenagers fuel the media?
posted by Stan Chin at 8:33 PM on January 23, 2003

But is she real or is she a poser(sp)? The debate rages on.

Sigh.
posted by magnificentsven at 9:05 PM on January 23, 2003

My fellow Avrilutionaries, our cause is too awesome for any of us to feel worthy of it.

I hate it when causes are that awesome.
posted by eddydamascene at 9:49 PM on January 23, 2003

Ohmygod! They killed irony! You bastards!

(I'm still waiting the Rage Against the Machine's corporate anti-corporate follow-ups to all die of embarassment. You know who you are.)
posted by wobh at 10:03 PM on January 23, 2003

Notice that Christina Aguilera's image is changing too.

To steal the one SNL joke that has been good this season: "have you seen the video for 'Dirrty'? It gave my television VD."

I had this in my post queue, but also related if you're interested is the PBS Frontline Episode : Merchants of Cool

It's been discussed here more than once, Stan. I can't find the most recent one though (even though I commented on it), dammit. But it's my favorite Frontline episode ever. So much that I actually bought the tape of it. The more press it gets, the better.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:26 PM on January 23, 2003

I don't ever want to be cool. Being cool is for losers.
posted by geekhorde at 10:45 PM on January 23, 2003

/me, once again, glances up up the Avril Lavigne concert tickets standing on his shelf.

*vibrates excitedly*

She's _so_ well branded!

*bursts*
posted by armoured-ant at 11:31 PM on January 23, 2003

The accusations of poserdom leaves a middle school elitism taste in my mouth. However, corporate culture co-option is another matter entirely. I was more than a little disturbed before I figured out that this was a parody and not an official site, since co-option of protest culture is scary stuff.

Skater punk culture was doomed to be co-opted anyways. Punk has long been a brand of sorts and between Tony Hawk video games and Nike, skating as a sport has hit the mainstream.

Color me a pop culture apologist, but I find Avril quite palatable. "Sk8ter boi" is her only song that truly sucks in the talentless hack sense of the word. Avril's message is benign enough so far and it is certainly less destructive than Britney's virgin-whore routine.

I'm just ecstatic that Britney Spears has finally burned out to the point that she's not even worth making fun of anymore.
posted by Skwirl at 12:15 AM on January 24, 2003

For a minute I thought it was real...and I was very, VERY afraid...
posted by Orange Goblin at 1:40 AM on January 24, 2003

This confirms my thoughts that I have a very low opinion of teenagers' intelligence. I thought it was real for a bit and it didn't supprise me at all.
posted by ed\26h at 4:32 AM on January 24, 2003

She's _so_ well branded!

That's how I feel about Kylie. I've just read an interesting book which says that the Kylies, Britneys, S Club 7s etc aren't actually the result of record company branding, but in fact the result of independent promotion companies taking over the development of artists from the record companies.

Pop Idol/American Idol, for example, was conceived and managed by Simon 'Spice Girls' Fuller's independent company 19 Group. These people are committed to finding the right 'vehicles' for pop songs, rather than trying to get the right songs for their already-branded artists. You don't have the songs, you don't have success (hello Sigue Sigue Sputnik).

They assemble the best song writers - usually Swedish - then get something good-looking with a good voice to front it. The record companies are becoming no more than copyright enforcers.

The book also went on to say that it was a return to the ethos of the fifties, where stars were stars and songwiters were songwriters, and there's nothing wrong with being a good interpreter of a song - a la Frank Sinatra - as opposed to being a singer/songwriter. It's an interesting idea. I quite like 'Complicated'.
posted by Summer at 5:38 AM on January 24, 2003

"If all of our available tactics of non-violent resistance have been co-opted (art, protest, culture jamming), what then is left?" (from Skwirl's link)

Surrealism? Nonsense? Digs at the system that are too subtle to be appropriated?

I don't think much of Avril, but I will point out one little thing about her that no one's mentioned yet - she's a babe.
posted by pyramid termite at 6:21 AM on January 24, 2003

Ugh. I saw this girl perform live on SNL, and any affinity I had for her oddly Dolores O'Riordan-like radio voice and her strong, high wail of a belt was bashed all to bits. She was so bad. Her voice was pure crap, and she had like the opposite of stage presence. The worst part of it was that she sounded enough like her overproduced radio self that you could tell exactly how the studio magicians had ProTooled it to make it palatable. I could see her agents shuddering as she made her way to the SNL soundstage, hoping she'd be able to produce a facsimile of that manufactured sound good enough to fool the kids at home into thinking she was just having a bad day. Yecch.

As for Christina Aguilera, the girl gave the most sickening interview to Rolling Stone. She's apparently been molded into an unrecognizable little bitch-child by her image makers and record execs, spitting like Linda Blair in Satan mode, saying things like "Fuck the pretty!" and "This is boys' underwear -- it's comfortable shit!" and "I'm the funkiest skunk of all!"

I give them both 15-20 years to work through the drug burnout period, the tabloid/rehabilitation era, and the tearful comeback. I predict Aguilera will reemerge as a gay club icon à la Whitney Houston. Avril Lavigne is neither talented enough nor loved enough to have a comeback, but you'll find her on a "Where are They Now?" soon in the future, living on a ranch, with a husband and two kids.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 6:24 AM on January 24, 2003

They assemble the best song writers - usually Swedish -

I'll bite summer, who, the founders of ABBA. I forget their names yet I hear they still are vwery productive in the music world and recently turned down a large sum of money to tour again.
posted by thomcatspike at 6:51 AM on January 24, 2003

I don't ever want to be cool. Being cool is for losers.

But now it's easy * to find out if you're cool or not!

*blatantly stolen from the Everlasting Blort
posted by yhbc at 7:14 AM on January 24, 2003

Roughly as famous as Avril will be in 10 years
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:20 AM on January 24, 2003

Heh... I bought a Jane Child album once. I thought it was cool that she flaunted the keyboard as her main instrument.

Then I listened to the CD and realized it was still just pop. It's been in my giant box of "trade these someday" CDs ever since.
posted by Foosnark at 7:46 AM on January 24, 2003

Benny and Bjorn have done some work for other singers, but I think the Swede in question is most likely Max Martin, a one man hit-machine.
posted by O9scar at 8:23 AM on January 24, 2003

Oh there's loads of Scans in the businesses, not just Swedes. Don't ask me why they have a particular talent for pop - they just do. Strangely enough, past pop-fodder such as Betty Boo and Cathy Dennis are now highly successful songwriters. Cathy Dennis wrote 'Can't Get You Out of My Head'.
posted by Summer at 9:33 AM on January 24, 2003

Don't ask me why they have a particular talent for pop -

May be it has to do with their native languages. Ever been in a room full of Scandinavians talking?
posted by thomcatspike at 10:34 AM on January 25, 2003