Avril Lavigne - "Bite Me" - Music Review

Despite being unlikely to stand-out as anything special not just in her own career but in the modern charts as well, Avril Lavigne’s “Bite Me” is not necessarily a bad song. The vocals are passionate, the use of beat drops and changes in instruments makes the music energetic, and with the repeated chorus, it can be labelled as catchy.  Although, it is this lack of originality that disfavours the Canadian singer-songwriter’s new single immensely.

Retrospectively, “Bite Me” falls into a mid-ground between the two popular eras of Lavigne’s singles career: her first singles “Complicated”, “Sk8er Boi” and “I’m With You” in 2002 with an innovative pop-punk soundtrack and baggy, crumpled, and laidback clothing aesthetic credited for being anti-Britney, and 2007’s “Girlfriend” with its high school love triangle story, and tight school uniform costume inspired by Britney.  Whilst the 2021 single has more realness, passion, and punk vibes than “Girlfriend”, most notable with the similarities between the choruses of “I’m with You” and “Bite Me” (although the former has a more intense and effective build-up), it is still clearly influenced by pop music of today. For example, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U” has the same teenage girl rants about a break-up over guitars and drums whilst dressed in a rolled-up school skirt in a dirty environment motif. Although, unlike the 18-year-old Rodrigo can capture the aesthetic and music more the 37-year-old Lavigne, and I think the age difference between the artists and the age difference between the teenage demographic it is aimed at hints at the reasoning behind the quality difference.

Furthermore, the song’s catchiness mentioned early is most likely due to the repetitive nature of the song. Considering that the 3 and a half times the chorus is crammed into the 2:39 song makes up exactly 50% of the run time, and a further two verses are also repeated twice throughout, the overall lyrics sound uninventive and bland. Easy to remember, and thus catchy to a teenage demographic, but annoying to anyone sober who is actually listening.

Maybe it would be better if she stopped creating simple recreations of the current pop trends, and went back to the music she originally defined, with its country acoustic guitars interlaced with punk electric guitars, passionate vocals and a crescendo into an explosion of sound, rather than what feels like the same bland chorus repeated for nearly 3-minutes. Basically, “Bite Me” is not bad, it would just be better if it was a little more “Complicated”.