Avril Lavigne has finally released what fans described as a “true pop-rock album” with her seventh studio album “Love Sux.” The album contains 12 tracks of heavy guitars and pop-punk vocals from Lavigne. She secured quite a few big collaborators on this album, with Machine Gun Kelly, Blackbear and Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 contributing vocals, and Travis Barker (drummer of Blink-182) contributing a drum line on leading track “Bite Me.”

Honestly, I was rather shocked to see Lavigne was still making music, and punk-style music to boot. Punk music is generally performed in the artist’s teenage years, so to see her still clinging to the same genre was both admirable and concerning: Admirable for sticking with what made you, and concerning for using the same teen image in her late 30s. This becomes abundantly clear after watching her music video for “Bite Me.” Lavigne is seen wearing the exact same clothing, hair and makeup styles as she did in the early 2000s. 

All of this being said, the album isn’t bad (but it’s certainly not Grammy-worthy). The collaboration tracks are definitely the best songs on the album. The rest of the songs all sound the same: Overly aggressive vocals, guitars and drums with no breakdown. In my personal opinion, almost every song could’ve been made a lot more interesting by adding a slowed-down and quieter breakdown somewhere in the song. If she would’ve just sang a little less aggressively sometimes, it would’ve added more diversity in the songs. As they are now, they all seem to blend together and make me lose attention.

The album starts off strong (possibly because of lack of exposure to the upbeat vocals and instrumentals), but seems to just be repeating the same formula for every song. The first track “Cannonball”  is a bit more interesting because of the distortion on Lavigne’s vocals in addition to her yelling the lyrics at points. I also find myself liking her collaboration with Machine Gun Kelly, “Boys Lie.” This song is definitely my favorite on the album! The two artists’ voices juxtapose each other quite nicely and Machine Gun Kelly’s voice adds a bit of deepness to the track. 

The same can be said for her collaboration with Blackbear, “Love It When You Hate Me.” I think that adding a male vocal to these two tracks added an extra spark and depth to them, and made them stand out from the other songs. All of Lavigne’s vocals have a brash tone to them, and can be too much to listen to with no break, so another vocalist performing with her gives a good breather for the listeners. 

Honestly, after you listen to the four tracks that I’ve listed in this article, I think you can ignore the rest of the album. They all have the same tempo, vocals, attitude and instrumentation, so unless you want to listen to the same song eight more times, I’d recommend leaving the others alone. In the wise words of Lavigne herself in her track “Deja Vu,” it’s like listening to the songs “over and over again, deja vu!”

All in all, “Love Sux,” is not as bad as I thought it would be since it’s a pop punk album performed by a middle-aged artist. While it is true that the “emo” attitude is way overplayed for Lavigne being that she has already made six other albums with this vibe, I can’t say the album is useless because the collaborations were fairly good. The artists she collaborated are of a younger demographic, so their youthful spark may be what made the abrasive lyrics a little less awkward. 

All of this being said, this is just one teenager’s opinion of an artist she grew up with; maybe you like the abrasiveness of her tracks and tongue-in-cheek attitude! If you would like to give your own opinion on Lavigne’s seventh album, you can find it on all streaming platforms, as well as in stores across the country.