![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Avril-Lavigne-Q-and-A-MAR-APR-2011.jpg\" "\\"Avril-Lavigne-Q-and-A-MAR-APR-2011\\"")
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Goodbye Lullaby<\/em> is Avril Lavigne\u2019s first new album in four years\u2014and her most emotional effort yet. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I haven\u2019t gone there before,\u201d says Lavigne, who has sold more than 10 million albums since releasing her debut, 2002\u2019s Let Go<\/em>, at age 17. \u201cI\u2019ve done that on some of my albums, but I was really in that place and wanted to go more in that direction.\u201d Ontario native Lavigne has always had a hand in writing her songs, including hits like \u201cComplicated,\u201d \u201cGirlfriend\u201d and \u201cMy Happy Ending\u201d\u2014but she goes one better on the stripped-down new record, writing half the tunes on her own.<\/p>\n This album is your most acoustic-based yet. How did that develop?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always enjoyed doing acoustic performances. When I would do that with my previous songs that have fuller pop production, like \u201cGirlfriend\u201d or \u201cSk8ter Boi,\u201d I would end up singing them differently when they were stripped down. I like how that feels, so I wanted to make an album that was more about acoustic guitars and the vocal performance. You can do a good vocal take with a lot of these pop tracks, but the producer puts a lot of compression on it, and the character and tone can get hidden. I want people\u00a0to hear the emotion.<\/p>\n What emotional vibe did you want?<\/strong><\/p>\n The main emotion is bittersweet, a blend of happy and sad. The overall message is about life and its journey, moving forward and finding inner strength, being strong and getting through things. The album has a positive message, though. It\u2019s\u00a0not negative at all.<\/p>\n What inspires you lyrically?<\/strong><\/p>\n So much of it is from my life. I write about things I see my friends or family go through, things people in general go through. And then a lot of it is me.\u00a0Actually it\u2019s mostly me.<\/p>\n Why did you write alone this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve written songs on my own before, I just hadn\u2019t put them on my records. For instance, I have a song called \u201cDarlin\u201d that I wrote when I was 14 and put it on this album. I typically write on guitar but I wrote a lot of the songs on the piano at my house or on the road. I\u2019d been playing a lot of piano on tour. But the overall process of this record was different. I worked in my home studio for the majority of recording, and took more time than I had on any of my other albums.<\/p>\n How long did recording take?<\/strong><\/p>\n I worked on this album for about two years, so I\u2019ve actually been done for quite a while. There were a couple of different release dates planned, but they didn\u2019t happen. I ran into a little fighting with the record company, because sometimes they come along with their vision. I said, \u201cUm, hi, I have my vision, this is my life, my record and these are my songs. It\u2019s my name, and you can\u2019t tell me what to do. Do you write my songs? No, so you can\u2019t tell me how to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n Can you relate to the songs on Let Go <\/em>when you sing them now?<\/strong><\/p>\n I connect with them. I love them. I love to play them, and it\u2019s nice to go back to them. I\u2019ve always put a lot of myself into my music, so it represents me, it was part of me\u2014and it still is. I\u2019ve had this consistent message, without even saying it, of being a strong person and standing up for myself.<\/p>\n \u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AVRIL LAVIGNE A pop princess strips down her sound\u2014and fights for her vision Goodbye Lullaby is Avril Lavigne\u2019s first new album in four years\u2014and her most emotional effort yet. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I haven\u2019t gone there before,\u201d says Lavigne, who has sold more than 10 million albums since releasing her debut, 2002\u2019s Let Go, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2411,1807,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3458,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456\/revisions\/3458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}