Is Avril Lavigne A Pissed-Off Punk Or A Shy Songwriter?

Andrew Miller of the Kansas City Pitch profiled Avril Lavigne, who has provided some punch to pop. Miller writes, “Onstage, Lavigne confidently riffs and shouts, a self-assured rock star playing simple but strikingly catchy songs she’s proud to have written herself. In interviews, though, she can be meek. She made the top five in VH-1′s list of the Top 20 women who rocked in 2002, but looked ill at ease during the accompanying interview segment. She made little eye contact, mumbled her replies and seemed remarkably uncomfortable, as though she were being forced to recount a steamy sex scene to her grandparents. Despite all her facial contortions and magazine-article f-bombs, she’s still an eighteen-year-old from a small town whose rise to superstardom was astonishingly quick. Unlike Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Lavigne wasn’t raised from Mousketeer age to be ready for her close-up — when the lens gets too close, she defensively shows her fangs or shrinks from its glare.”