The Best Damn Thing

Background

While Lavigne was in the studio for her third studio album, Fox Entertainment Group approached her to write a song for the soundtrack to the 2006 fantasy-adventure film Eragon. She wrote and recorded two "ballad-type" songs, but only one, "Keep Holding On", was used for the film. Lavigne admitted that writing the song was challenging, making sure it flowed with the film. She emphasized that "Keep Holding On", which later appeared on the album, was not indicative of what the next album would be like.

Musical style

While touring, Lavigne stated that her favourite songs to sing live were her more upbeat ones such as "Sk8er Boi". This made her decide that The Best Damn Thing wouldn't have many mid-tempo songs and would instead feature more energetic songs. The songs were described as sounding like Toni Basil cheerleading for Blink-182, and praised for her ability to combine bubblegum pop melodies with punk rock riffs. Lavigne described the record as "fast, fun, young, bratty, rock, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way...all the good stuff". Many of the songs on the album didn't have a deep meaning to Lavigne, with her stating "It's not like some personal thing I'm going through. They're just songs." It was produced by Dr. Luke, Butch Walker, Lavigne herself, and Lavigne's husband at the time, Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley. Travis Barker of Blink 182 and +44, recorded some of the drums for the album as did Josh Freese when Lavigne and her party couldn't reach Dave Grohl.

Songs

A total of twelve songs were released within the studio album. The opener and lead single, "Girlfriend", was written by Avril Lavigne and Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, who also produced the song. "Girlfriend" is a moderately fast pop punk, song at 152 beats per minute, performed in the key of D major. Lavigne's vocal range spans from A3 to D5. "Girlfriend" is available in seven other languages, the only difference from the English version being the chorus translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, German and French. The song was compared to the song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", in which chants the similar verses, but was resulted in a lawsuit in mid 2007, accusing her of plagiarism. "I Can Do Better" was compared to the cheerleader anthem "Mickey".

The songs "Runaway" and "Alone" were compared to each other. "When You're Gone" is a power ballad with a piano and synth introduction. "Everything Back But You" was compared to "99 Red Balloons" and Sum 41. The songs "One of Those Girls" and "Contagious" were highlighted for their chugging metallic guitars [One of Those Girls] and overlapping vocal lines [Contagious].

Plagiarism allegations

On 25 May 2007, songwriters James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar sued Lavigne, her co-songwriter Lukasz Gottwald, Almo Music, and RCA Records, claiming that "Girlfriend" contains lyrics plagiarized from their song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", originally performed by The Rubinoos and released by Beserkley Records in 1978. In January 2008, the lawsuit was settled and Lavigne and Luke were completely exonerated.

In June 2007, Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, with whom Lavigne co-wrote the majority of her second album, Under My Skin, spoke to Performing Songwriter magazine about Lavigne's songwriting ability and ethics. Kreviazuk claimed that the song "Contagious" was based on a track she had sent to Lavigne in 2005. On 6 July 2007, Lavigne denied the accusation in an open letter on her website. She also threatened legal action against Kreviazuk for her allegations, and Kreviazuk ultimately made a full public apology and retracted the statements.

Promotional releases

On 18 February 2007, clips of "Everything Back But You", "I Can Do Better" and "When You're Gone" were released on AOL Music. The track "Alone" (the B-side of "Girlfriend") was made available for download on the iTunes Store in New Zealand and Australia on 29 March. The whole album made its radio debut on Ottawa radio station HOT 89.9 at 6:00 pm on 14 April 2007.

Days before the release of The Best Damn Thing Lavigne was full in promotion around North America doing live performances on shows including Saturday Night Live, Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, TRL, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Live with Regis and Kelly.

On 11 September 2007, Lavigne appeared on the season finale of Canadian Idol 2007 and performed "Hot" and "When You're Gone". On the show, Lavigne made announcement regarding her tour in support of the album.

Lavigne also made her debut on the worldwide fashion website Stardoll to promote "The Best Damn Thing". Here, she created her own "paperdoll" and answered questions to her fans in a quick 10-minute exercise. Her suite can be found on [www.stardoll.com/en] in the Real Celebrities column. She also has a promotion column and her clothing Abbey Dawn also features on the website, where other members can buy her clothing to dress up their dolls.

Tours

During all of 2007, Lavigne promoted her album with a Promotional Tour playing some TV concerts for CBC and MTV in Canada and Paris. She also played 3 full concerts in Mexico and places such as Rome, Hong Kong, Russia, and played in China for the very first time in her career with a record sold out concert in Shanghai. In Europe she played at different summer festivals. In Asia she was part of the Summer Sonic Festival in Osaka, Japan and by the end of the year formed part of the Jingle Bell Christmas Tour.

Lavigne embarked on The Best Damn World Tour, beginning 5 March 2008 to 6 October 2008 in 110 tour dates to support The Best Damn Thing. The tour visited North America from March to May, then from May to July all over Europe, coming back to the USA and Canada in July–August and finally went to Asia from August to October. The opening act for the North American leg of her tour was Boys Like Girls. The European leg of the tour was opened by the Jonas Brothers. Demi Lovato was the opening act for some of the dates in the second leg of the North American part of the tour. Other opening acts include Double Faced Eels, and The Midway State. The setlist includes songs of the new album but also older singles from Let Go and Under My Skin. A DVD with live recordings of the tour was released on 9 September 2008 called The Best Damn Tour - Live in Toronto.

Lavigne performed a small tour to promote The Best Damn Thing. Only members of her fan club were allowed to attend the shows. She kicked off the small tour in Calgary, Alberta, and played for a crowd of around 200. The Calgary show aired on television on 2 April 2007, on the CBC Network. On this show, one could see behind-the-scenes footage and Lavigne performing songs from The Best Damn Thing, as well as other shows in Los Angeles, Paris and Madrid. She also held autograph signings in New York City and Hollywood after the album was released.

The tour stirred controversy when it generated protests in Malaysia over Lavigne being 'too sexy'. However, the government finally gave permission for her to perform on 29 August 2008.

Due to "acute Laryngitis", Lavigne canceled the last eight North American concerts. She also canceled her concert in Barcelona, Spain the same day of the concert due to a supposed truckers strike.

Singles

"Girlfriend", the first single released from the album, was produced by Dr. Luke and was a global success. It reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The single also reached number one in twelve other countries across the world including Australia, Canada and Japan. It was also the top selling song of 2007 worldwide. The accompanying music video broke YouTube records, becoming the most watched video of all-time by July 2008. It holds the record as the first video on YouTube to reach 100 million views. There was also a remix of the song featuring rapper Lil Mama.

"When You're Gone" was the second single. Released on 19 June 2007 while "Girlfriend" was still strong on the charts, the power ballad became another hit in the UK and other countries. It peaked at No. 4 on the European Hot 100, was close to reach the top 20 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and attained top twenty status in over thirteen countries. There is an acoustic version of the song on the deluxe edition of The Best Damn Thing that was only available on the iTunes Store.

"Hot" was the third single, released in October 2007. The song was written by Lavigne herself and Evan Taubenfeld; it showcased Lavigne at her most revealing. The lyrics describe Lavigne's feelings for a guy who "makes [her] feel hot". The song's music video was considered her sexiest to date at the time. The single was the least successful in the US, charting only at No. 95 on the Billboard Hot 100, yet it managed to reach the top 10 in Japan and Canada, and top 20 in Australia. A version of the song was recorded in which the chorus was replaced with lyrics in Mandarin.

""Innocence"" was the third single in Italy, and "MTV Italia" made an unofficial video.

"The Best Damn Thing" was the fourth single from the album. It was released on 13 June 2008 and was produced by Butch Walker. The song has a strong pop-punk vibe mixed with a teen-cheerleader theme. "Innocence" was released as a radio single for Italy and Canada, and managed to chart in the latter.

Critical reception

The Best Damn Thing garnered generally positive reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic gave the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, stating that the album "feels even more adolescent than her aggressively catchy-n-shallow debut, 'Let Go', perhaps because this is an album where Avril is allowed to run wild," calling it "as exuberant, irreverent, and exciting as any other bubblegum pop, defiantly silly and shallow, but also deliriously hooky." Alex Macpherson of The Guardian gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, calling it "a triumphant comeback", describing it as "a high-octane blast on which she is having the time of her life." Alex Nunn of musicOMH called it "a fun, engaging record", "an exuberantly fun album, one that packs more than a fair punch and puts a delightfully perky twist on the direction of former releases 'Let Go' and Under My Skin."

Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly and Theon Weber of Stylus Magazine gave the album a "B" rating, while Willman praised Lavigne for "providing the best darn rock & roll album teen girls are likely to hear all year", Weber described the album as an "enormous, senseless, superficial, selfish, and cocky past the point of absurdity, but it’s never wrong." Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone praised the album for being "totally fearless about targeting pop radio and rather expert in its execution." Tim O'Neil of PopMatters was positive towards its uptempo songs, calling it "strong pop-punk turns," while considering the ballads "regrettable". However, O'Neil praised Lavigne for making "the brave decision to measure artistic maturity with no one’s yardstick but her own." In a more mixed review, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that "as an album, 'The Best Damn Thing' is too relentless to be heard end to end", while Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine was more critical with the album's unexpected move, calling it "a big step back for an artist who was just starting to grow up."

Commercial performance

The Best Damn Thing became Lavigne's third album to have reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 with about 289,000 copies sold, less than Under My Skin, which sold 381,000 in its first week. This is Lavigne's second number-one album, after Under My Skin. The Best Damn Thing remained at number-one in its second week on the chart, selling about 121,000 copies. As of September 2015, The Best Damn Thing had sold 1.7 million copies in the US.

In Canada, the album debuted at number one with 68,000 copies sold, slightly more than Under My Skin. In its second week, there was a 62% sales drop to around 26,000 copies. The album has sold 320,000+ in Canada. In Australia, The Best Damn Thing debuted on the ARIA Albums Chart at number two and shipped over 35,000 copies, being accredited Gold by ARIA; it was Lavigne's first album not to reach number one. It has been certified two times platinum.

In Japan, it debuted at number two. In its second week of release, after Lavigne's Music Station performance, it reached the number-one spot, selling 120,000 copies. This is her second number-one album in Japan. In its chart run, it sold 900,000 copies and was the third best selling album of the year, and the only non-domestic album in the top twenty-five. In Spain, The Best Damn Thing debuted at number nine, lower than Under My Skin, which debuted at number one. The album debuted at number one in over twenty countries and sold 784,000 copies in its first week worldwide.

According to the IFPI, The Best Damn Thing was the fourth top-selling album worldwide and Sony BMG's top-selling album of 2007 with sales of over 7 million copies worldwide. As of September 2015 ,the album has sold over 1.7 million in United States alone and more than 8.5 million copies worldwide. The explicit versions of the album were Lavigne's first to receive a Parental Advisory label, shown on the limited and deluxe editions.

Track listing