Somehow, this tension never affected Avril Lavigne, the Canadian pop-punk star who arrived in 2002 aged 17 with the brilliant Complicated, a heaving teenage sigh directed at some poseur boy. But there is no shame in being a gateway artist, a role Lavigne seemed surprisingly happy to keep playing. “The emotion was so raw.”Despite Lavigne’s illness, she says she never doubted her capacity to commit to a whole album. This is the kind of dry “focus on the music” Lavigne prefers. Two years ago, a conspiracy theory that Lavigne had died and been replaced by a doppelganger went viral.

Source: The Guardian January 14, 2019 06:00 UTC