Is Avril a "songwriter"?

I think she wrote all of her songs, I mean she wrote 2 or 3 songs alone on UMS

I think it's safe to say most of LG wasn't really written by her because there is a huge difference in lyrical style when you look at say the self written songs on GL or AL. I especially can't picture her coming up with lyrics like the ABO bridge, I doubt she even knew what any of those words meant.

I can believe she wasn't super involved with The Matrix songs because those were supposed to be the "hitmaker" songs. And once they got hits with Complicated and Sk8er Boi and such I can see why Avril went around saying she wrote more than what she probably did because it was her image back then, the "anti Britney" that wrote her own songs about real teen issues, etc. She even chose her words very carefully by saying something like "None of those songs aren't from me." That could still mean she only contributed a few ideas.

As orange sky said I heard the songs she wrote with Cliff Magness she was much more hands on with and that she supposedly wrote pretty much all of it herself and he tweaked it a bit here and there. And I think those lyrics do sound more like her.

So The Matrix songs I can definitely believe are what she probably had the most help on and was least involved in. But I think there is exaggeration coming from both sides. The Matrix made it sound like Avril really didn't do much of anything and was barely present during the session, as though she was twiddling her thumbs while they wrote the song, and I don't think that's true. In the Howard Stern interview from a few years ago Avril spoke very distinctly about writing Complicated, saying she and Lauren wrote the lyrics together under a lemon tree or something. She was very specific. I think exaggeration came from both sides because it was important to Avril's image that she make it seem like she was a songwriter and once those songs became hits it was important that The Matrix let everyone know they were behind those songs so that other artists would want to work with them.

I think UMS she was a lot more involved with the writing as the lyrics are a lot simpler and more similar to her self written stuff. I'm not sure how much stock I put into Chantal's statement. She may have said that because she was angry thinking Avril had stolen her song or because she had "heard" it from somewhere else (The Matrix story) and used it against her out of anger or maybe a couple examples where a writer gave her a song that she tweaked like MHE. But Chantal has always come across as bitter to me anyway because none of their songs became hits and then Avril got huge and never wanted to work with her again.

I've always noticed the people who say these kinds of things about her aren't big people in the industry. Meanwhile people like Dr Luke, Max Martin, The Runners have all said positive things about her. I even remember The Runners saying that Avril wrote the majority of their songs and that she was a "genius."

We know Avril used to write her own songs before she was famous (Darlin being a prime example of that). I can believe that she wasn't heavily involved with her first album for obvious reasons especially The Matrix songs. But after that I think she became more involved (we definitely saw some of her songwriting process on TBDT when it showed how she wrote ICDB). And there are self written songs on both GL and AL. At this point she has proven she can write songs so I don't think most people care whether she really wrote her debut or not.

As far as the ethics part goes, it was revealed recently that Avril was able to receive a 30% writing credit on Breakaway simply for recording the demo. It appears like she may not have actually written anything on that song yet still got credit for reasons other than writing. Some artists can also get a writing credit for only changing a few words too. I can believe some of that went on with LG.

I remember how bad I feel when I first heard "She want's to go home but nobody's home" Like WTF was that ~

Of all the songs Avril wrote with The Matrix, I think the only song she really had control over was Sk8er Boi. The lyrics, to me, seem like the they are the "simplest" of all they wrote together. Plus, if it were compared to other collab songs such as the Clif Magness songs, they sound similar and sounds more "Avril".
Another song that she might have had some more control over, but not much, might be I'm With You.

LMAO yeah the whole "anti Britney" thing was in itself still an image.