Avril Lavigne‘s new album Love Sux just came out last week (Feb. 25), and it’s the first time in years that she’s has released a record full of guitar-driven pop-punk songs. While discussing the record with Uproxx, the singer enthused about her excitement for the “new generation discovering rock music.”
Lavigne’s first album Let Go came out in 2002, and she became one of the pioneers of the pop-punk genre. While most other women were making pop music at the time, the young Canadian artist was writing songs with a guitar, and had a rebellious attitude about her.
Her next two records, 2004’s Under My Skin and 2007’s The Best Damn Thing followed suit, but her sound really began to evolve around 2011’s Goodbye Lullaby. Love Sux marked the vocalist’s return to her roots, as the album follows a primarily pop-punk sound, and is laced with collaborations from Machine Gun Kelly to Blink-182‘s Mark Hoppus.
“For me and my music, I’ve always had a connection to pop-rock, pop-punk, rock and roll, and emo music. I’ve always had that element in my albums, and it’s always been with me — at all of my shows, all of my concerts,” Lavigne said.
“Music is cyclical, things are trendy, or played on the radio and then not — like it’s so wild that rock and roll would not get played on the radio? — but when I saw pop-punk finally being accepted, and being more mainstream again, I was like ‘F–k yes bitches, let’s go,'” she continued. “I’m so stoked to see my friends doing so well in music, and the new generation discovering rock music.”
The pop-punk princess noted the buzz-worthy When We Were Young festival, which went viral for its stellar lineup when it was announced in January of this year. In addition to Lavigne, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, AFI, The Used, Bring Me the Horizon, A Day to Remember and more will perform at the event.
“If you look at the success of the When We Were Young festival, it shows the appetite for this type of music is the strongest it’s ever been,” she remarked. “This is the music that I grew up listening to, and that helped shape me as an artist, so I’m really stoked to be a part of it.”
Aside from Love Sux, Lavigne also has a 20th anniversary edition of Let Go slated for release at some point, which will include demos from the making of the album, and she also plans to do some shows where she’ll only perform those songs. Stay tuned for when the plans are officially announced.