Avril Lavigne biography

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Born Avril Ramona Lavigne on September 27, 1984, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. For more than a decade, singer Avril Lavigne has enjoyed huge success with her punk-influenced pop sound. She has also branched out in new directions over the years, including starting her own fashion line.

Lavigne sang all the time as a child, much to the chagrin of her two siblings. Raised by deeply religious parents, she first started performing in church choirs. Lavigne learned to play the guitar, and began composing her own music as a teenager. At first, she reportedly focused on country music. Lavigne, however, eventually changed her tune. Leaving high school, she went first to New York City and then to Los Angeles to work with Arista Records.

In 2002, Lavigne released her first album, Let Go. She scored a No. 1 hit with the single "Complicated," a catchy tale of a difficult relationship. More hits soon followed, such as "Sk8er Boi" and "I'm With You." In addition to her music, Lavigne also found herself as a style icon for many of her young fans. They mimicked Lavigne's multicolored hair and copied her skate-punk fashions.

Her music took a more contemplative turn on 2004's Under My Skin, which did not fare as well as her first album. Still she had two modest hits, "Don't Tell Me" and "Nobody's Home," and one Top 10 track, "My Happy Ending." While many of her songs explored relationship troubles and woes, Lavigne's personal life seemed to be going well. She married fellow musician Deryck Whibley in 2006.

Returning to her more up-tempo and exuberant pop style, Lavigne released The Best Damn Thing in 2007. She landed a Top 10 hit with the infectious "Girlfriend." A Rolling Stone critic called the song "hypercatchy" and said that the album had "big doses of [Lavigne's] usual sass, anger, and vulnerability."

On next album, Goodbye Lullaby, Lavigne looked at love from different stages, from joyful togetherness to the pain of breaking up. The subject matter came as no surprise; between the release of The Best Damn Thing and her next record, Lavigne and Whibley had divorced. The split was amicable enough, however, for the pair to work together on Goodbye Lullaby; Whibley served as a producer on several of the album's songs. Not straying too far from her power-pop roots, Lavigne used the incredibly hooky hit "What the Hell" as the album's first single. Goodbye Lullaby has already enjoyed enormous success abroad, hitting the top of the album charts in Japan, Australia, and Korea.

Music hasn't been Lavigne's only interest. She launched her own fragrance