We don’t know what to think about the fact that Avril Lavigne outsold Nine Inch Nails by 100,000 copies this week. Lavigne’s new record Best Damn Thing sold 286,358 copies while Trent’s apocalyptic concept album Year Zero sold just 186,651 copies. Back in the day (we’re talking 2002) we felt pretty confident defending Avril’s bratty pop-punk gems (see “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi”) from cynical rock snobs because we figured we’d only have to do it for an album-and-a-half or so. Who knew that five years later we’d still be confronted with the relative un-shitty-ness of ANOTHER fucking Avril Lavigne single (this time it’s the snarky ode to boyfriend-pilfering, “Girlfriend”)? We want to hate Avril already but she keeps failing to provide the ammunition we need to take her down.
Still, we’re totally obsessed with the Year Zero and have been playing that “The Good Soldier” song on virtual repeat since we got our hands on the record. We think the album has staying power and hypothesize that after this respectable debut we’re gonna see it hang around in the top ten for a while. But then again, we can’t really be trusted, we thought DJs would be DJing “Complicated” ironically by now.