Arista
Pop Rock, 2004

Now that Alanis Morissette is boring me to tears with her incessant and neurotic over-self-analysis and Michelle Branch can barely be heard over the loud background music, it is horrifying to realize that Avril Lavigne has somehow moved in to become the new poster girl for angst-ridden teenage little girls everywhere whose angst is nursed over incessant watching of TRL and complaining that parents are evil because they don’t let said little girls run away on a school night to watch a Maroon 5 concert.

Under My Skin is a more rocky CD that plunders influences from The Cranberries to Alanis Morissette to other sanitized punk rock elements, all of them stripped away of any convincing passion for Ms Lavigne to deliver with the polished gusto of a professional studio-enhanced performer. Tracks like He Wasn’t and Take Me Away are pleasant and catchy radio-friendly tunes, although I would be hard-pressed to identify who the singer is if they haven’t announced her name.

It’s probably to be expected that a manufactured performer like Ms Lavigne will mimic so well the nuances and inflections of Alanis Morissette to make Under My Skin a satisfying – if unconvincing – CD. Still, this CD is an improvement over her debut. Maybe in her third CD she’ll start dueting with her older counterpart, Amy Lee of Evanescence, about drug addictions, slash marks on one’s wrists, and other angsty matters that they have little to no knowledge of.