Actors - Avril Lavigne

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	Actors - Avril Lavigne

Avril Ramona Lavigne (born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian pop singer-songwriter and actress who is known for her "skater punk" persona. Her two albums, Let Go (2002) and Under My Skin (2004), topped the charts in numerous countries.

Although her surname is of French origin, she herself does not speak French and her name is pronounced in an anglicized way, somewhat as ("La-veen"), rather than . Her first name, Avril, is French for April, but is also pronounced in an anglicized, way as ("Av-ril"), rather than .

Biography

Early life

Born in Belleville, Ontario, to conservative Franco-Ontarian Christian parents John and Judy Lavigne, Avril, at age five, moved with her family to Napanee, Ontario, Canada, where she sang in a church choir and taught herself to play the guitar.

She was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Avril was spotted by local folksinger Steve Medd, who invited her to sing on his song Touch The Sky for his 1999 album Quinte Spirit. She also sang on Temple Of Life and Two Rivers for his followup album, My Window To You, in 2000.

At 16, she was signed by Ken Krongard, the artists-and-repertoire (A&R) representative of Arista Records, who invited his boss, Arista head Antonio "L.A." Reid, to hear her sing in a New York City studio. She then completed work on her first album.

2002–2003

Reportedly, early attempts to co-write songs for her failed to meet her approval, and Lavigne eventually moved to Los Angeles, California, and co-wrote her album with Clif Magness and the songwriting team The Matrix, which has also worked with Sheena Easton and Christina Aguilera. She described her first album, Let Go, as a pop album with "a couple of rock songs on it", and has voiced a desire to write more rock-oriented songs in the future. It was released by Arista on June 4, 2002, in the United States, reaching No. 2 there and No. 1 in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (making Lavigne the youngest female soloist to have a number-one album in the UK). It was certified four times platinum less than six months later by the RIAA, and had sold 15 million copies worldwide as of December 2004.

Four singles from the album were released, all of them hits. "Complicated" went to No. 1 in Australia while reaching No. 2 on the U.S. Hot 100, and was also one of the best-selling Canadian singles of 2002. "Sk8er Boi" reached the top ten in the U.S. and Australia and No. 1 in Canada, "I'm with You" reached the top five in the U.S., while "Losing Grip" reached No. 1 in Canada, the top ten in Taiwan, and the top twenty in Chile. The media have often compared Lavigne to Alanis Morissette (one of her favourite artists alongside Coldplay and The Goo Goo Dolls), who is also Canadian, as well as singer-songwriters such as Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch, who emerged at about the same time and were popularly credited, with Lavigne, as part of a trend towards more creativity in the teen pop-music market.

Lavigne was named "Best New Artist" at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, won four Juno Awards in 2003 (out of six nominations), a World Music Award for World's Best-Selling Canadian Singer, and was nominated for eight Grammy Awards.

2004–the present

Lavigne's second album, Under My Skin, was released on May 25 2004 in the U.S. It debut at No. 1 in U.S.A, U.K., Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Thailand, Korea and Hong Kong and sold more than 380,000 copies in U.S.A in it's first week. . Lavigne wrote most of the album with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, though some tracks were co-written by Lavigne and Ben Moody (formerly of Evanescence), Butch Walker of Marvelous 3, and the rest with her former lead guitarist Evan Taubenfeld. Kreviazuk's husband, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida, co-produced the album with Butch Walker and Don Gilmore.

Lead single "Don't Tell Me" went to No. 1 in Argentina, top five in the U.K. and Canada, and top ten in Australia and Brazil. "My Happy Ending" reached the top ten in the U.S., and was her third-biggest hit to date there, but third single "Nobody's Home" did not make the top forty, though it reached the number one spot in Canada. The final single from the album, "He Wasn't", reached No. 1 in Canada, making the song her eighth No. 1 release since "Complicated", but failed to make the UK top twenty and was not released in the U.S.

Lavigne won two World Music Awards in 2004 for World's Best Pop/Rock Artist and World's Best-Selling Canadian Artist. She received five Juno Award nominations in 2005, picking up three, including Fan Choice Award, Artist of the Year and Pop Album of the Year. She also won the award for Favourite Female Singer at the eighteenth Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.

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Actors - Avril Lavigne

Biography

Early life

2002–2003

2004–the present

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