What happened to Avril after UMS?

It’s really simple. She grew up and changed. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Next....

Thanks for the responses. It is interesting to note how others view things.

Honestly, I bought into the the image of Avril as being who she was in those early years. If you don't like my music then you don't like me. Whether she skated or not seemed unimportant. She never claimed to be a punk and was miffed when others called her faux punk (find it on youtube). Her dealings with the media seemed strained, as though she'd rather be elsewhere. She sang of being herself, not some Britney or tween idol.

I have every scrap of her stuff - the special editions and B sides. All the DVDs. My World, Try to Shut Me Up Tour, the Bonez Tour documentary and making of  on the special edition of UMS + Bonez Tour DVD from Japan, A Day in the Life from the two disk Let Go... these are all worth their weight in gold. Damn shame there was never a proper release of the Bonez tour like there was with My World. It can't have all been marketing mystique. There was a whole person there.

But then there was a metamorphosis. The gruff, honest and opinionated Avril had become just another plastic fantastic. Since Under My Skin there has been one slightly memorable jingle and some cookie cutter love songs (And a complete loss of any more live footage outside of the stuff offered on TBDT and GL). The Best Damn Tour was painful to watch. I could just imagine some image consultant whispering in her ear over and over: SMILE HARDER. FAKE IT. Ditto for the live recordings on The Best Damn Thing special edition.

Surely it wasn't just a cash grab - a conscsious decision to abandon all her fans in favour of the potentially more profitable tween market because some advisor or other said they could boost sales if she could just be a littl bit less her self... a little less challenging. Which was a bust BTW. Album sales have dropped by order of release.

People can indeed change. Growing into something vapid and insincere is painful to watch.

Thanks biggerwow. Much Appreciated.

See the thing is that Avril said on the release of UMS that the music had changed as she grew older... had become darker, more emotional. Makes sense to me.

To reverse all that and go pop tastic with cheer leaders and break dancing on the third album confounds me. It hurts. LG had some genuinely classic stuff. Losing Grip, Unwanted, Mobile, My Home- I'm With You still chokes me up every single time. I loved UMS. Always will.

Country or Rock, I just want to see more of the Avril that had something to say.

Just because she once enjoyed darker music and a more “goth/emo” image does not mean suddenly when she decided she liked pink and glitter she is now inauthentic. The parts of TBDT that I can understand people not liking, and I myself had a hard time accepting at first, are the bratty lyrics, the fact she said a lot of the songs weren’t personal to her (when she had always made a big deal about her music being so personal), and the dancers, she since had always also made a big deal about not being like the other pop stars who had dancers.

Here’s the thing. Had Avril/the label/the media not made such a huge deal in the first place about pushing Avril as this serious singer/songwriter who only writes such personal songs and hates pink and pop music, it wouldn’t have been such a shock to anyone when she decided she liked those things. I believe that is genuinely who she was in LG and UMS, but it was quite exaggerated by the label in order to sell records. With TBDT, that was also who she genuinely was and it was also exaggerated to sell records. That’s how it works. But she took over creative control of that album more than probably her other 2, especially more than LG. This wasn’t some label telling her they thought she should do this, she personally felt it was the direction she wanted to go in after doing such a heavy, dark album. Imagine playing those songs on the road night after night for 2 years, it isn’t surprising at all she wanted to change it up. Plus she was happy and married, naturally she was more inclined to do upbeat stuff at that point.

And so what if she wanted to experiment with dancers? It made sense for that album and was the perfect time to try them. She hasn’t used them since, mostly because it doesn’t work with the music she’s put out since then, but also because I think she prefers just having the band.

The way I see it is that after UMS her career could have gone one of 2 ways. She could have opted to continue with the UMS sound and image, but she likely would have tapered off after a while and become more like an Evanescence type of artist - successful enough to still chart and tour but she wouldn’t have likely had much mainstream success. I also think her fans would have become bored after a while if she kept doing the same album over and over.

The other option was to do what she did which was reinvent herself and take her career in a new direction. It might have alienated some fans but it also gained her some new ones. Yeah it sold less than her past records but that happens with every album she puts out. GL was also a “serious” album that sold even less, so the quality of the music doesn’t really have anything to do with it. Like it or not, TBDT was her last truly successful commercial era and the only era so far that produced a #1 single.

The criticisms of the brattiness of the era or the dancers or less personal writing are totally valid. But I really dislike when it seems like people criticize her or that album for the pink stuff, or the fact she decided to dress more feminine, as if to imply her acting feminine and girly is a bad thing and “oh she was so much better before.” You may not realize it, but that is misogynistic and I really dislike that. There’s nothing wrong with Avril changing her interests and views of the world and deciding she can finally like pink and girly things while still keeping her rocker chick sound and image. There’s nothing wrong with her experimenting and trying new sounds or having dancers for one record. She’s an artist and she’s allowed to try new things instead of staying stuck in this one particular sound and image just because that’s what fans want from her. And more importantly, as a woman, she’s allowed to be multifaceted. She can like pink and glitter and cheerleader music and still be a rock chick. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

thank you. I didn't want to be the one to say it 😅

Easy, she was replaced for a doppelganger! Do your research!

Jk

I agree with @biggerwow

Thank you guys. This is all good stuff.

Avril did state that a part of herself died in those early years. I've not been able to flesh that out. Damned curious if anyone might have details.

I suppose for me the most jarring thing about TBDT era was the rictus smile. It wasn't her. Not one bit. The Avril I knew was not afraid to show boredom or displeasure. Fake smiles were for the Disney princesses and allied corporate products.