Musicbot 2003, Avril LavigneAPR 21 2003

Along the lines of Dave Eggers' great rant about selling out, Jim Derogatis compares manufactured pop star Avril Lavigne with her less "phony" colleagues:

Midway through a sold-out show at the UIC Pavilion Saturday night, Avril Lavigne played a spirited cover of Green Day's "Basketcase."

A comparison between the two pop-punk acts is revealing.

According to the standards employed in the punk-rock underground and adopted by many critics, one of these acts is "real" and one is "phony." But while the differences are interesting to note, in the end they don't matter a bit.

The show that Lavigne performed here on her first wide-scale tour was as musically accomplished, emotionally rousing and satisfying overall as any I've seen by Green Day, Blink-182, Sum 41 or any of their "more authentic" pop-punk peers.