Avril Ramona Lavigne (born September 27, 1984, in Bellevue, Ontario, Canada) is a 40 year-old singer-songwriter who emerged in the early 2000s as a forerunner of the pop-punk genre. In 2000, at age 16, she signed a recording contract with Arista Records and released her debut studio album "Let Go" two years later. It topped the Canadian album charts and included the hit singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi." These early hits emphasized a skate-punk persona that contrasted with the bubble-gum pop aesthetic of artists like Britney Spears, earning Lavigne the title "Pop Punk Queen." Her next two albums, Under My Skin" (2004) and "The Best Damn Thing" (2007) were also number-one hit albums in Canada with the former including the multi-national chart-topping single "Girlfriend." While her future albums did not chart as highly, they all charted in the top 10 in Canada and the top 20 in the US. These included "Goodbye Lullaby" (2011), "Avril Lavigne" (2013), "Head Above Water" (2019), and "Love Sux" (2022).