Avril, "Complicated", part MMXIV

Unless of course this is more ironic hipster stuff, which it probably is, and it's not like I'm not guilty of that myself. Yeah dude I bet the song is totally about her blowing some guy.

The autotune and the vocal filters and the mannered singing don't say "sexy" to me. They just make me think of the Johnny Bravo episode of the Brady Bunch, which was a stupid episode with a facile surface moral of course but that's not my point: my objection isn't that "Complicated" is inauthentic, or overproduced, or anything else. But the secret moral of the Johnny Bravo episode of the Brady Bunch, the one hiding underneath the script & the actors presenting it, is that you can't put lipstick on a pig. How does Greg's song sound after the Hollywood producers have finished with it? Terrible. And how did it sound before the producers got to it, and how will it sound now that he's reclaimed it for The Real Greg Brady? Terrible. Neither worse nor better. Just awful. Because it's not a good song.

(Also Snorf I don't know how long you've been reading or posting here, as I've been away for a little while, but if you click on any random ten threads in the archives I'm sure you'll find at least one that goes over (and over) the stupid "irony" accusation, and people point out how mindbogglingly ridiculous it is to pretend that no one could possibly enjoy the music on the pop charts, particularly given the obvious empirical evidence that it's, like, quite popular.)

For my part, I can appreciate that type of stuff for being catchy/disposable and play it loud and dance to it when I'm drunk, that's not the point, I just don't confuse it with what I'd classify as good music. So I = ironic hipster in that sense, and I can't believe that I'm the only one on ILM.

(for what it's worth, I hate Complicated cos I just think it's a really annoying tune. I like Sk8er Boi but since I heard the synth version I have no interest in that either)

And the lyric! I object to it on philosophical grounds. I object to the assertion that a person ought to act the same in all social situations to be true to some set-in-stone "real" version of himself. I think that thinking like this is a mistake: wanna keep it real for your job interview? Good luck! It's normal and natural to act differently in different setting. Of course Dame Avril is actually saying "you act like a dick when we're in company," which is a fair objection, but underlying the song are these fetid notions of authenticity & "realness" at which I'd think most pop lovers would cry "foul."

The icing on the cake, though, is the title line. How the fuck does this situation, so clear to the narrator, get described as "complicated"? Ain't shit complicated about it! It's so simple it doesn't take more than half of the bridge to the chorus to spell the whole damned thing out: "But you become/Somebody else/Round everyone else/Watchin your back/Like you can't relax." The "cool/fool" line is senseless padding. I'm sure it was responsible for the death of some puppies somewhere or something. To say nothing of her delivery of the "cool/fool" line. I don't like new country, all that misplaced histrionics: 'cause I do love me some histrionics and hate to see 'em misplaced. Wherefore, "Complicated" can eat a bag of dicks.

And yes there is such a thing as liking something because "it's so good it's bad". I have 2 custom-made CDs full of Ca$h Money stuff for that very reason. Sure, I guess you could say I "like" it, but that's somewhat misleading.

There just isn't any difference. Now let's get back to talking about how "Complicated" sucks monkey ass.

But, yeah "Complicated" sucks. Avril's cute though.

I wasn't gonna buy Chocolate Factory because I disapprove of R. Kelly's personal habits, but now I feel obligated to buy both the album and the singles.

Wow. I reacted in the exact opposite way to Avril's music.

1.) I do "like" the songs because they are funny
2.) I could give a rat's ass what Wheezy Wee and Mannie Fresh think about me doing anything but since they don't care yay
3.) don't be so dumb

And what the hell, I didn't say it was so ridiculous for anyone to like Avril or whatever. My original question was why someone would need to put effort into TRYING to like it, because that music is made to be easily likeable, digestable, whatever.

1. When I said it was about a blow job.. ar. Of course, I don't think it really is, but I'm confident someone let the innuendos in the song slip on purpose. It amused me the first time I thought of it this way, and it changed my perspective on the song, which I'd already come to like, but being able to take a break from it, I was able to really come back to it passionately.

2. Avril is approx. my age. This being a topic I still hear people complain about partially motivated my not liking it initially.

3. This song totally OWNED last summer. That was the motivation for this thread: seeing how people feel about it a year later - as she's still milking that album for all the singles it's worth. I don't like this song ironically. I've had it on repeat for 5 days, completely immersing myself in the tone of it.

4. The song's antagonist is making things complicated in an emotional sense, obviously, it's not that there's a series of subplots distracting from Avril her rocky relationship. The protagonist is a teenager, not some conflicted Hamlet-like wreck. Here's the breakthrough for me: she wants this guy, and she's not sure if it's worth the effort, but here she is, trying to relax with her boyfriend and she can't hold back her self-confidence while trying to tell him he needs to be more confident himself.

5. "I am going to teach myself to like this" is just something that, for me, needs to be said, or I won't enjoy life as much. It applies to everything from noise music to grapefruit juice to performing oral sex. I'm proud of my will power that way.

6. I thought we agreed elsewhere that the mispronunciation might be due to her accent. Is there nowhere in the world where they pronounce it compliCATEd.

...in her mouth

I don't mind Avril at all, actually I think she's kind of a blank and despite Nabisco's interest in her persona I think her persona doesn't really seem to come through in her songs, even those which are positioned to be ostensible autobiography. i mean she really seems like just another voice--one reason this song doesn't work is b/c she's given too much freedom, vocally speaking, and she doesn't know what to do with it. i really like her ballad, whatever it's called, where she sings pretty straight and only goes off toward the end, by which point it actually means something.

If her persona were so bold I doubt I could like one of her songs so much and the other so little.

Also Nabisco re. your reason for appreciating Avril: I don't recall thinking this way at all when I was a teenager (least of all a 17-year-old) and I actually remember looking down my nose at those who did. And what bugged me about those people was the immodesty and vocal-ness of their superiority issues, not the issues themselves. So I have little innate sympathy, nostalgic or no, for the viewpoint expressed in this song.

She looks like a rodent but that's neither here nor there.

I think many ppl go through that phase but when you see ppl taking this stuff seriously (as in 'discussing content' etc) then you have to look at that.

but having said I haven't bought/downloaded anything.

Avril Lavigne
Complicated

Uh Huh
Life's like this
Uh Huh
Uh Huh
That's the way it is

Cause life's like this
Uh Huh
Uh Huh
That's the way it is

(sum up so far here: she's 16 or 17 know-it-all)

Chill out
What you yellin for?
Lay back
It's all been done before
And if you could only let it be
You will see

(Sum up: Leather cuffs, heavy mascara, angry tough girl songs apparantly have NOT all been done before-- because she's singing advice to somebody else, apparantly. She's got it all figured out at the wise old age of 16 or 17. If you would only "let it be, you will see"...)

I like you the way you are
When we're drivin in your car
And you're talkin to me one-on-one
But you become

Somebody else
Round everyone else
Watchin your back
Like you can't relax
You tryin to be cool
You look like a fool to me
Tell me

(Sum up: these are Avril's friends' and parents' feelings as she developed from sweet little kid singing Whitney Houston songs in front of her classmates to serious, deep, emotional artist she is today with leather cuffs and heavy mascara)

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're actin like you're somebody else
Gets me frustrated
Life's like this you
You fall and you crawl and you break and you take what you get
And you turnin into
Honestly, you promised me
I'm never gonna find you fake it
No no no

("This song is for my grampa, who died today and now I'm going to cry onstage while I sing this heartfelt acoustic song at the end of my show because I need to exploit this opportunity to appear a tortured artist. For some reason, us kids think that sort of weekness is really deep and 'cool'... I learned it by watching Courtney Love when I was 12.")

You come over unannounced
Dressed up like you're somethin else
Where you are ain't where it's at you see
You're makin me
Laugh out
When you strike a pose
Take off
All your preppy clothes
You know
You're not foolin anyone
When you become

Somebody else
Round everyone else
Watchin your back
Like you can't relax
You tryin to be cool
You look like a fool to me
Tell me

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're actin like you're somebody else
Gets me frustrated
Life's like this you
You fall and you crawl and you break and you take what you get
And you turnin into
Honestly, you promised me
I'm never gonna find you fake it
No no no

(Sum up: Oh, now I see... fakers are people who wear preppie clothes! It doesn't apply to people who wear leather cuffs and heavy mascara and take every opportunity to speak honestly about their deep, dark emotions. Fakers are those preppie people who are kind enough not to dump their boring personal shit on you and then act like they deserve a medal of honor for sharing.)

In any case I'm deeply skeptical of this "but the narrator is incorrect" attack, because I've never met anyone who only likes music where he or she literally agrees with the thoughts expressed in the lyric (and if I ever did, I imagine there would be something deeply boring about it). What would this theoretical person like, anyone? Folk music with shared political sympathies? Indisputably factual storytelling songs? "No, that Lesley Gore song sucks because even if it is her party she has a hostess's obligation to curb the drama in consideration for other people's enjoyment of the gathering?"

I mean, "Red Dragon Tattoo," for Christ's sake! It's about a kid who thinks getting a tattoo is gonna make him cool enough to get chicks! Just like Avril: it's naive and silly but it's also totally right. Because: do you think the girl's gonna notice him once he's got the tattoo, or do you think he's gonna look like a dork who went out and got an ill-advised tattoo in a laughable effort to make himself cool? But also: don't you completely understand what he's thinking, as well? Don't you completely understand the possibility that it might work? Fountains of Wayne know both ends of it; the only difference with Avril is that she's usually still the kid.

Or "Lose the Biker," another near-exact analogue to the teenagey wrongness of Avril: teenage geek-boys complain that all the pretty boys go for jerks, so Chris creates a crude and envious caricature of a food-in-his-beard biker who he suspects has never "read one word that wasn't in a porno mag." What if the biker actually reads lots of medieval history? Chris is being exactly as immature as Avril.

Also "Survival Car" -- surely driving a speeding car though Central Park is not something we should support, given the danger to pedestrians and the environmental spoilage of one of Manhattan's few remaining semi-natural spaces.

Fountains of Wayne are frequently just an Avril who knows she's Avril.

I like the turn-around you've just created, though: according to you it's not like Avril that involves irony, it's liking the "tongue-in-cheek" stylings of Fountains of Wayne! That said, if you don't see the affection and emotional resonance FOW are trying to inject into thoughts and situations they know can be teenagey and "wrong," I think you're missing their point entirely (they're saps, not satirists) -- and beyond that I'm not sure why the same sort of deep mix of emotions can't be gleaned from something by Avril. You've flipped the usual indie vs. pop authenticity script here: Fountains of Wayne are the ones who can recognize what's juvenile, but Avril is the real believing-every-word deal?

Sort of yeah: listening to "Sk8er Boi" is like listening to "Red Dragon Tattoo" if the kid in the song was actually singing it, actually believing it, instead of being mediated by Chris Collingswood's knowing-better.

(Also, this is a side-issue, but I am really hoping for a chance to review that new Fountains of Wayne, strictly in order to try and tear down that common indie defense mechanism that goes "oh no, it's okay that they have sappy pop songs about proms and football players, because they're being ironic" -- and, well, they're not. They're certainly knowing about it, and they like to deflate their sappiness with a lot of jokes and winks, but this doesn't change the fact that they are not at all making fun of their material.)

I suppose the difference is that if you like Avril for precisely that reason, it makes you one of those "I like this ironically" sort of people, which is confusing, but not wrong. If you like FOW, you don't have to clue people in on the joke because it's already there plainly to enjoy.

In-season dumbass vs. well-seasoned wiseasses.

i need this on a t-shirt.

You're not alone there in that feeling.

I don't think its quite like that. if you do say you hate it but you don't give reasons or if the reasons are a bit dodgy then its quite natural to think that you will be 'challenged' over that.

tehn just stick to it di.

(or throw abuse around) ;-)