Avril Lavigne's Lifeless 'Saturday Night Live' Performance
 
Sometimes I like to be surprised, I even occasionally like to be proven wrong.
I write about celebrities because they are cultural touchstones who influence us in our everyday lives. Whether it be through passionate on-screen performances, brilliant lyrics, an otherworldly beauty emanating through their voices or sheer ethereal light shining from their core - celebrities matter because it is we who make or break them.
So with a hopeful heart, I waited patiently through last night's mostly unfunny Saturday Night Live skits to see if musical guest Avril Lavigne could shine through her vacuous interviews and painfully self-absorbed remarks -- and deliver her pop-punk sound with conviction.
Sadly, I wasn't just disappointed with her performance - I was disgusted.  Avril's performance, though technically accurate, was contemptuous. She showed contempt for the audience and worst yet, her own music. One might expect this from an artist who has been shoved into a genre or a style that doesn't suit them. But Avril, as she will tell you, is her own person. She writes her own lyrics, creates her own style and even helped to craft her own sub-genre of angsty pop-punker, who just so happens to also sing ballads. In any other case, I would respect a person who was capable of that much creativity. But Avril doesn't deserve my respect. She is a shell of who she claims to be, a shallow outward personification of cool, with little or no substance below.
Music of her sort needs to come from a place that bubbles up from within. A source of energy, excitement, anger and desire. Avril's performance last night, and any previous interviews I have either read or watched present an entirely different person. At 22, Avril Lavigne is hollow on the inside.
The first song Avril sang was her new single "Girlfriend" a very up-tempo, frenetically-paced pop song, complete with all the infused elements of punk we are supposed to notice: anthemic chants, affected stances and in-your-face lyrics.  But Avril seemed bored, disingenuous and uncommitted. She seemed to genuinely think her music was for sh*t and she was too good to have to sing it.Â
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