[ALBUM THREAD] The Head Above Water Thread

I’ll take what Wikipedia says with a grain of salt, since I don’t know where all the info is coming from. I’d be kind of pissed if the songs with Travis, Rotem and Zane got scrapped because that would mean she did the same thing as in GL and AL this year to replace the songs with overproduced pop songs. Based on Mitch and Levine’s history, I’m doubtful we’ll hear any real instruments on those songs or that they won’t be very poppy, but we’ll see. I just don’t get why Allan gets to have 4 songs when she worked with so many more talented people on this album in the last two years who seemed to be much more in sync with the style she was initially going for.

I’m not holding my breath for any of the songs she produced by herself because they tend to be too raw and boring.

My guess is that while this might still be a more vocal album, at least the songs with Mitch and Levine will be more beat-driven, synth tracks, and that’s something I don’t like one bit. And it’s not just a song or two, it’s 1/3 of the album...What I loved about the lead, Head Above Water, was how natural it sounded, you could actually hear all the instruments on the track. I’m doubtful we’ll get that with those songs. Hope I’m wrong...

I wonder if we’ll be able to preorder a deluxe version of the album on Wednesday as well. It would be cool to have two or three more new songs on it. I’m not sure if BMG releases deluxe versions of their artists’ albums, though.

Pretty sure Fergie also had one but the deluxe material was music videos of each song.

Mitch Allen has written some great pop/rock stuff, I don’t get the hate. He wrote the song 1985 that was covered notably by the band Bowling for Soup. He also wrote a lot of Hannah Montana songs that were pop/rock. I thought pop/rock/punk was the style everyone loved from Avril. She did say she wrote some “rock” songs for this album.

I’m disappointed we won’t hear more Zane and Rotem songs since she worked for so long with them and seemed like she was going in an interesting direction with them. However, I can understand her wanting to leave the past behind and do what she feels passionate about at that time. She said numerous times she loved writing again and didn’t want to stop. Obviously the new songs will take precedence over ones she wrote years ago. The integrity of the album is still there with songs like HAW, Birdie, Warrior, and possibly Crush and TMIO. But she probably didn’t ant the whole album to be ballads like GL (which many fans including myself found to be boring and monotonous) so she added some upbeat pop/rock songs to balance it out. She isn’t sick anymore and wants to have some happy songs, not just songs about an illness she doesn’t even have anymore.

At any rate, I don’t think it’s fair to write off an entire album without even hearing it.