Avril Lavigne - Love Sux
by Sydney Gray
Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne just released the pop-punk album Love Sux on February 25, 2022. This much-awaited follow-up to her 2019 album Head Above Water takes listeners back to the 2000s, where Lavigne reigned supreme as the Pop-Punk Princess. Unlike Head Above Water, which explored her vocal range and strength, Love Sux features throbbing bass lines and scream-singing to align with themes of anger, bitterness and revenge in the album.
Love Sux features twelve powerful tracks, including collaborations with Machine Gun Kelly, blackbear and Mark Hoppus. Recently, we’ve seen a pop-punk revival, such as singers Olivia Rodrigo and WILLOW, but this album shows that Lavigne is not ready to give her crown up yet. The opening track “Cannonball” begins with the lyric “Like a ticking time bomb, I’m about to explode,” which rings accurate as her explosive vocals and production carry through this album.
In an interview with Billboard, Lavigne explained that she “went into this album and just said, ‘I want to make a pop-punk record, a rock-and-roll record. I don’t want to be on the piano. I don’t want ballads, really. I just really want to rock out.’” And rock out, she did! The closest track to a ballad is the softer “Dare To Love Me” that features piano; in this song, Lavigne is begging her future partner not to confess their feelings unless they are genuine. There is a vulnerability to it.
Out of the three collaborations, the one most worth talking about is “All I Wanted” with former bassist and co-lead vocalist of blink-182, Mark Hoppus. The electrifying guitar and fast drumming complemented with dynamic vocals made this a standout track on the album. Hoppus and Lavigne match each other’s energy as they switch between lyrics in the verses and come together in the chorus. This song took me straight from 2022 to the 2000s pop-punk glory days.
The title, and my favorite, track “Love Sux,” starts with a catchy drum beat that turns into Lavigne’s strong and angry vocals with words directed toward an ex. The chorus features an upbeat production and jarring lyrics reminiscent of her 2007 album The Best Damn Thing. I could not help but scream-sing the rhetorical question “why does love suck?” at the end of the chorus and dance around when the bridge featuring Mod Sun blared through my laptop speakers.
Love Sux ends on an uplifting note with “Break Of A Heartache,” where Lavigne sings, “I don’t wanna cry like that / I don’t wanna feel that bad / I don’t wanna take another rip, ‘nother strain, ‘nother bruise, ‘nother break of a heartache.” The anthemic track is one giant middle finger to the subject of the songs and feels like the perfect way to close out an album all about the hate, spite and hurt that comes with love. This ending makes me so excited for Lavigne’s future releases.
My main complaint with this album is that it is just too short. The run time is slightly longer than thirty minutes, and the longest track, “Avalanche,” sits at only three minutes and thirty-nine seconds. However, every short song is a bop compiled to make an energized album, so we can safely assume that Lavigne was intentional with the time—I wouldn’t consider any track to be forgettable or a filler. If you’re looking for 2000s nostalgia in an album, give Love Sux a listen.