Avril Lavigne Celebrating 10 Years In Pop Music -- Contact Music, 23 December 2011 -- Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne will soon celebrate her 10th anniversary in the music business. Avril, now 27, burst onto the scene back in 2002 with an album, Let Go, that was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Speaking to Mtv News about her decade in music, Avril explained, "Yeah, Ive been doing this for a really long time, 10 years, professionally in music. And I would always look back and just say always be true to yourself, do what you want and follow your gut. And that was what I did." Maintaining her pop/soft rock sound, the singer found a winning formula and it also began when she shifted 18 million copies of her debut album. Her breakthrough single Complicated, peaked at No.1 in various countries around the world, as did the album. Discussing her integrity as an artist and songwriter, the Ontario native continued, "As a creative person you have to be in tune with that and really have a sense of who you are and what youre going for because other people come in and tell you [that] you should do this and that so I always stayed focused on what it is that I wanted to do." With more than 30 million albums sold worldwide, Lavigne is one of the top selling artists currently releasing music in the U.S. and her fourth studio album Goodbye Lullaby entered the Top 10 earlier this year. _________________________

twm: To paraphrase the 1979 epic film Apocalypse Now (uh oh here he comes now), the Black Star BS piles up so fast around GL you need wings to stay above it. Avril is lucky to have a friend from Bandaids working at MTV. Meanwhile Avril avoids most reality other than the TV-kind her socialite boyfriend stepped into. RCA kept it real and they were of course, right. Avril caved and she knows it. I have no problem with Avril floating her version of BS -- everyone lies, it is called surlieval er survival -- although her noise annoys going on for over a year. GL BTW entered the Top 10 in the US and exited two weeks later. RCA was founded in 1901, and the RCA Canadian division was but one of two Canadian record companies to survive The Great Depression of the 1930s. RCA is still rocking and recording on. Know who is still on RCA? Britney Spears. Like her or not, the woman delivers. RCA was unsatisfied with Avril and the soft-pop home-made treacle Avril was failing to deliver on GL. They knew that dog would not hunt. So they sent her back to work to write some new songs, to make some damn hits. She did not sell 30 million records by firing blanks. Avril BTW does not get paid by RCA by the unit. She has a record contract for big bucks. She needs to bring it. It sucks but art must meet commerce halfway or go home, and start your own label, and then put out whatever the hell you want. Avril thought she could cry on her sleeve and sell her tears. RCA said well OK then, at least add some bright color to that water. They sent her to work with the songwriting pros, Max Martin and Shellback. Together they wrote the only singles Avril has released this year: Wish You Were Here, Smile and her only hit, the one she constantly shits all over because she does not want to admit it was a hit and RCA was right, What The Hell. As Shakespeare wrote, The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Get over and on with it, Av. Take it from the King that is Carole, who over 45 years only wrote or co-wrote 115 hits on the Hot 100: "Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose / And sometimes the blues get ahold of you / Awe, just when you thought you had made it / All around the block people will talk / I wanna give it up, all that I got! / I just dont want, I dont wanna waste it." Avril dear see here: You are away from RCA now. baby, you are a free bitch! Really celebrate by making some winning music again. M-kay.

Avril Lavigne Recording While Fans Complain (While Avril records her fifth album in the studio, fans are up in arms over a mix-up on her latest single "Wish You Were Here.")

Arthur Sean, Suite 101, December 19, 2011 -- Avril Lavignes fans are in an uproar over a mix-up on her latest single "Wish You Were Here." A special "fan edition" of the single was offered through Avrils website, with a previously unreleased track called "Hello." But today the first fans to receive the special edition report that no such song was included.

"This really sucks, is it even legal?" one fan wondered. "Shall we bombard them with emails and force them to release a B Side (Preferably Complete Me) to help us get over the trauma?"

While some fans blamed RCA, others quickly pointed out that the CD was in fact not released by RCA, but Avrils new label Epic Records. Calls for a boycott or write-in campaign were immediately organized by the Avril Lavigne fansite, AvrilBandaids.com.

Ironically, Bandaids has itself been the center of a number of controversies, in which it was itself the focus of fan anger. There have been numerous reports of the site exploiting and cheating fans in a number of ways, from posting phony messages purported to be from Avril herself, to filling the site with trojans and spyware, to running contests with nonexistent prizes. They also came under fire several years ago for organizing the infamous attempt to game Youtube so Lavignes "Girlfriend" video would become the most-viewed. Many fans have reportedly quit the site in disgust in recent years.

As of this writing, the CD is still being offered for sale at Avrils official website with "Hello" still included on the tracklist.

Fans may find comfort however in the fact that Avril took to Twitter recently to post several messages about her new work with hip-hop production team The Runners: "Rocked out in the studio with @TheRealRunners till 7:30 am. Slept our asses in now gonna go make some more of that ROCK!!!!!!!" and "Just recoded vocals and now @alexdelicata is laying guitars ... Sweet. Love this song."

Her work with the Runners seems to have concluded, as she tweeted last week: "Hey @TheRealRunners @alexdelicata had the best week with u guys in the studio. Thanks for the good times !!! Miss you already!"

A small sample of lyrics from one of these new songs has us quite intrigued. Its Avril both more cynical and more playful than weve ever seen her before:

"Write songs, right wrongs, now they got me wearing thongs,
Hey Reid, dont bleed, just cuz Im a hayseed
Buy in, sell out, gonna scream and gonna shout
Sex them, tax them, see you soon in Maxim."

No word on the songs title.

The new album, Childish Unwanted Sadistic, will be released next year.

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Thanks once again to starnote

So some cowardly gang of LA punks just beat up on poor Avril in her own adopted hometown, perhaps for nothing more than her failing to tour the states. They still get to bow down before her recovering lovely face on their very own plasma screens! Ain't that America?.... In the latest A-M Poll, a clear majority of you voted (61% of 80 votes cast) that you are a bigger fan of The New Avril than The Old Avril. This wow now for her new wave won despite her decision for the first time ever not to bother with the US. "No BS Tour for you!" Well, while with one hand she may have given American fans of 'Goodbye Lullaby' the buh-bye bird, with her other she's waving them on over to their TV. So here then is a list of upcoming boob-tube promo for 'Wish You Were Here,' as she tries to wish, perchance to dream its way onto the charts.... Please feel free to add more appearances in the comments below. Show that you care more than fucking me! I mean, I can't stand GL, yet here I am the only one bothering to post this. Go figure. Get pumped up, kids! (Just not with your damn claws and fists this time.)

11/20: AMA's (no perf, merely presenting, an award to someone else - what? no awards for you?)
11/22: Good Morning America (Fall Concert Series)
11/24: Macy's Day Parade (Performance Float)
11/28: Regis & Kelly
11/29: Rachel Ray
11/30: Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting
12/01: National Christmas Tree Lighting

Thanks to Avril Bandaids (Devon, Lewymocha, and In the Rhymes). They're pumped up! (Shouldn't you be?)

Avril Bandaids homepage (10.28) declares: 'U.S. fans! Even though Avril didn't take The Black Star Tour to the states, she has definitely found a way to make up!' ...O rly? By playing 2 festival gigs this December and that's it in her entire home country. To paraphrase 'Apocalypse Now' (1979 US film), Oh man, the bullshit piles up so fast at Bandaids you need wings to stay above it. -- thewaymouth

Avril underwhelms at sparsely attended concert (The following is an online review of Avril's BST concert at Rogers Arena, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Oct. 3, 2011) By Stuart Derdeyn, The Province, October 4, 2011  -- Thee upper levels were dark, the floor only a third full and the back of the stadium seats empty. A far cry from the packed venues of the Let Go era. Or even the Best Damn Thing days.

Four albums into her career, the Ontario singer just launched her Abbey Dawn “punky” fashion line and if everyone in Monday night’s crowd wore it, you would never know.

Katy Perry could launch a brand of candy-scented tissues that would command a market share. The Sk8r girl ain’t riding that wave anymore.

After New Cities’ well-received set of keyboard-based tweenie rock, the lights went up and a scan of the audience made clear that the kids who started with Avril have mostly moved on. The audience is mostly children and parents and tweens.

In other words, troubling to the product life cycle.

This isn’t to say that the nine-year-old girls in front of me weren’t excited. Borrowing mom’s iPhone to video tape the opener and tour title track so they could upload it to Facebook immediately, there were even some cheers. I could have believed she shouted “wake up” rather than “what up Vancouver” after.

“What the Hell” had the desired effect. It is the sort of hooky and upbeat track she built her career on and it got both the artist and the audience going. “Sk8r Boi” followed and Lavigne was in control — always had a soft spot for this song. At least as smart as anything Simple Plan or Hedley ever composed. And she said she lived in Vancouver for six months. And that her mother was in the crowd. OMG!

“He Wasn’t” included a lengthy hands up/hands down/yell/whisper section and then it was ballad time. She was sticking to the earlier material and sounded quite good.

Her singing voice has grown as she’s aged even if the lyrical content has lagged.

She certainly knows that the faster, louder material where those “hey, hey” choruses occur strikes a better response than the more adult slow songs. The set list was a balancing act. One that would play well at a PNE show.

It’ll be a decade or more before a lot of the most passionate in last night’s audience can catch her in a casino. The whole singing on the piano thing just screamed lounge act.

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Final A-M Poll Results: Thunderdome Battle: Which song would U like me 2 add next 2 my BST Setlist? 
Darlin
 76%
Goodbye
 24%
All votes: 33
By a wide margin then most folks would rather see Avril perform a song she wrote when she was 14 rather than the title song she wrote specifically for GL when she was 25... Ya, 4 real.

Avril Lavigne Abbey Dawn Party @ PURE Nightclub Las Vegas -- (c/o i hook up vegas) The sexiest Canadian superstar Punk Rockin’ lady on the planet, Avril Lavigne, will host the Industry Night party at PURE Nightclub inside of Caesar’s Palace Casino & Resort Las Vegas Tuesday August 23, 2011.  Avril Lavigne will be hosting the event to officially launch her new Abbey Dawn Clothing Line for what will absolutely be the hottest star-studded Red Carpet affair event of the week in Las Vegas!

Thanks to gigigigi97 of Bandaids

Avril will perform on the Mountain Stage in Tokyo on Saturday August 13. This will likely mean a rock show, granted an abbreviated fest set, to be aired on TV. On top of that, Av will appear this Sunday on The Teen Choice Awards, once again on TV. There has been no definitive confirmation, but it seems likely she will play there as well. So there's all that for which to look forward.

Thanks so much to fan-randole of Bandaids for the Summer Sonic info!