Singer uses music to get points across

At a press conference in Seoul yesterday, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne had a message for her young Korean female fans: “My songs are related to girls my age. I want to tell them to stand up strong.”
The 19-year-old singer-songwriter was in Korea for her second concert here.
To meet the press yesterday, she showed up in a plain black T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, with her hair carelessly tied up in a rebellious teenage girl attitude. Stretched out comfortably on a couch, she giggled frequently.
“My last concert in Korea was insane,” said Ms. Lavigne. At her first concert, the audience was jumping up and down so much the organizers had to tell them to stop, out of fear the floor would cave in.
For last night’s concert at Olympic Hall, all 4,500 tickets sold out in two weeks. During the show, she sang songs from her two albums.
In 2003, she experienced huge success with her first album, “Let’s Go,” which sold 15 million copies worldwide.
On her second album ― titled “Under My Skin” because she wanted to reflect on what she was feeling inside ― she made the rhythm, melody and lyrics darker and moodier than the first effort.
Rather than put pressure on herself to match the success of “Let’s Go,” she instead tried to concentrate more on what kind of message she wanted to deliver.
Her fans were more than willing to listen. Her second album sold 2.5 million copies in America and went multi-platinum worldwide.
She came to Korea after headlining the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan. She has only three days in the country, not enough time to travel. The next stop on her Asian tour is Taiwan.

by Stella Kim