Wild
child Avril Lavigne hit big in summer 2002 with her spiky-fun debut
song,
"Complicated," shifting pop music into a different direction.
Lavigne, who was 17 at the time, didn't seem concerned with the glamour
of the
TRL-dominated pop world and such confidence allowed her star power to
soar. The
middle of three children in small-town Napanee, Ontario, Lavigne's rock
ambitions were noticeable around age two. By her early teens, she was
already
writing songs and playing guitar. The church choir, local festivals,
and county
fairs also allowed Lavigne to get her voice heard, and luckily, Arista
Records
main man Antonio "L.A." Reid was listening. He offered her a deal,
and at 16, Lavigne's musical dreams became reality. With Reid's
assistance and
a new Manhattan apartment, Lavigne found herself surrounded by prime
songwriters and producers, but it wasn't impressive enough for her to
continue.
She had always relied on her own ideas to create a musical spark, and
things
weren't going as planned. Lavigne wasn't disillusioned, though. She
headed for
Los Angeles and Nettwerk grabbed her. Producer/songwriter Clif Magness
(Celine
Dion, Wilson Phillips, Sheena Easton) tweaked Lavigne's melodic, edgy
sound and
her debut, Let Go, was the polished product. Singles such as
"Complicated"
and "Sk8er Boi" hit the Top Ten while "I'm with You" and
"Losing Grip" did moderately well at radio. Butch Walker of the
Marvelous 3, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida, and Don Gilmore
(Linkin Park,
Good Charlotte) signed on to produce Lavigne's second album, Under My
Skin,
which appeared in May 2004. The album topped the Billboard charts and
produced
the number one hit "My Happy Ending." Other singles like
"Nobody's Home" and "Fall to Pieces" did respectably well
also. Settling down a bit from her punk rock wild child persona,
Lavigne
married her boyfriend of two years, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley, in
July
2006.
Although she spent some time dabbling with a film career - lending a
voice to
the 2006 animated film Over The Headge and appearing in Richard
Linklater's
fictional adaptation of Fast Food Nation that same year - Lavigne spent
most of
'06 working on her third album, The Best Damn Thing which was released
in April
of 2007. It marked a return to the bratty, spunky punk-pop of Let Go,
best
heard on the album's first single, the
chart-topping “Girlfriend” (which
later became the subject of controversy as the '70s power-pop band The
Rubinoos
sued Lavigne claiming that her tune reworked their '79
song, “I Wanna Be Your
Boyfriend.”). The Best Damn Thing debuted at number one on
the Billboard charts upon the week of its release. ~ MacKenzie
Wilson, All Music Guide |
Stars 
