If Shania Twain’s legends slot feels strangely timely given the amount of pop-country currently in the UK singles chart, you could say the same thing about Avril Lavigne’s performance, which seems a little like a legends slot in all but name. Pop punk is very much a thing again, and while you can trace the genre’s roots back to the Buzzcocks’ debut single, no artist can claim to have made punk more pop than Avril Lavigne did in the early 00s: refashioning its sound – and a dash of grunge’s angst – as bratty but harmless tweenage entertainment. She shifted so many copies of her debut album in the process that its follow-up was deemed a commercial disappointment on the grounds that only sold 10m as opposed to its predecessor’s 16m. Moreover, pop punk’s current practitioners have been more than happy to pay tribute to a woman they clearly consider to be the OG: Olivia Rodrigo covered Complicated when she played Glastonbury two years ago.
“Here’s to never growing up,” Lavigne sings, as well she might: after briefly dabbling with a more mature sound – moody Christian rock – on 2019’s Head Above Water, she clearly realised which way the wind was blowing and leaned back into her original mall-rat teen-punk persona.
