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Avril Lavigne
Ryan McFadden*Taylor Swift really, really likes Avril Lavigne‘s new album. The singer who has a Midas touch when it comes to gifting sent Lavigne a sweet note and bouquet of flowers to celebrate Avril’s new album, Love Sux.
The gift was highlighted in Taylor’s Insta Stories according to E! News, which grabbed images of the bountiful bunch of pink, white and peach-colored flowers to accompany the note, which read: “Avril, Been dancing around my kitchen to your fabulous new album!! It’s AMAZING, like you.” The card was signed “Your forever fan, Taylor.”
Lavigne celebrated the release of her seventh album last Friday with an intimate show at Los Angeles’ The Roxy as part of SiriusXM and Pandora’s Small Stage Series. The 37-year-old punk pop princess we clearly on cloud nine during the show, which featured high-energy renditions of such fan favorites as “Sk8er Boi,” “What the Hell,” “Girlfriend” and “Complicated.”
With a bottle of champagne in hand, Lavigne toasted her return to the pop-rock realm after her more emotional, low-key 2019 LP Head Above Water and she brought along some famous friends to help, with collaborator Travis Barker on drums for four songs, as well a boyfriend Mod Sun, who joined her for their “Flames” duet, which ended with a sweet onstage hug and kiss.
“I went into this album and just said, ‘I want to make a pop-punk record, a rock-and-roll record. I don’t want to be on the piano. I don’t want ballads, really. I just really want to rock out,’” Lavigne recently told Billboard. “I think especially after my last album being so mellow and dramatic and deep and introspective — you know, it was beautiful, and it was where I was at in my life, and that’s what worked for me at the time. But I was just ready to get back out there, rock the f—k out, and again just thinking about the live shows. I mean, this is the kind of music I fell in love with, when I was old enough to buy CDs, to discover bands — like, my first year of high school, which is grade nine in Canada.”
Check out images of the gift below.
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in London, joined by IDLES and Kojey Radical. He later collaborated with Fred Again.. on the electronic track “Lights Burn Dimmer,” which incorporates and reshapes elements from Jamie’s 2023 song “Hippodrome.”
During a conversation with Radio 1 presenter Jack Saunders on Wednesday, Aug. 19, Jamie called the collaboration a “big deal” for him. “That song, when I wrote it, I hadn’t realised until I heard Fred’s version how much hope was in the lyrics. I felt quite emotional when I heard Fred’s version, and his spin on it. That was really helpful for me, as I wrote that song at quite a difficult time in my life. To see it turned into a more euphoric thing was really quite lovely.”
Jamie will offer an early taste of the new album during a small, exclusive performance at Scala in London on Thursday, Aug. 20. The concert will be his first headline appearance since playing to 40,000 people at Finsbury Park, although he made a short guest appearance with Fred Again.. in February during the producer’s USB002 tour run at Alexandra Palace.
After breaking through in 2007 with the Mercury Prize nominated Panic Prevention, Jamie went on to release another four studio records, with each reaching the top 10 of the Official U.K. Albums Chart. He has also appeared at Glastonbury Festival on several occasions, including his widely praised headline performance on the Woodsies Stage in 2022.
Check out “3310” below.
