When Lavigne was five years old, the family moved to Napanee (now incorporated as Greater Napanee), Ontario, a town with a population of approximately 5,000 at the time. When Jean-Claude was a child, the family moved to Ontario, Canada, and in 1975, he married Judith-Rosanne "Judy" Loshaw. Their son, Jean-Claude Lavigne, was born in 1954 at RCAF Station Grostenquin near Grostenquin, Lorraine, France. A member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he married Lucie Dzierzbicki, a French native of Morhange in France in 1953. Lavigne's paternal grandfather Maurice Yves Lavigne was born in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. "My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying." She is the sister-in-law of Japanese band One OK Rock bassist Ryota Kohama. Lavigne has an older brother named Matthew and a younger sister named Michelle, both of whom teased her when she sang. He and Lavigne's mother recognized their child's vocal abilities when she was two years old and sang " Jesus Loves Me" on the way home from church. She was named Avril (the French word for April) by her father. Lavigne was born on Septemin Belleville, Ontario, Canada.
Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop punk music, since she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. It yielded the singles " Complicated" and " Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title " Pop Punk Queen" from music publications. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. She has released seven studio albums and has received several accolades and nominations, including eight Grammy Award nominations.Īt age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Let Go shows promise, but the question is whether Lavigne and only Lavigne will shine through on her next effort.Avril Ramona Lavigne ( / ˌ æ v r ɪ l l ə ˈ v iː n/ AV-ril lə- VEEN born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actress. Lavigne is still so young she's listening to the radio hits of the '90s and early 2000s: she's Pink when she's bucking authority, Alanis Morissette when she's angry, and Jewel when she's sensitive. Lavigne is a capable songwriter with vocal chops, and at her age, one imagines, she is still finding her feet, borrowing from the music she's grown up listening to. Lavigne, a self-professed skater punk and labelmate of Pink, shares her "Take Me as I Am" credo as well. She handles a variety of styles deftly: "Sk8er Boi" has a terrific power pop bounce "Complicated" is a gem of a pop/rock tune with a killer chorus, making the song a knockout radio hit. Her debut runs the gamut from driving rock numbers like "Losing Grip" - where she shows off her vocal range, powering into the anger-fueled, explosive rock chorus - to singer/songwriter pop tunes like "My World," where Lavigne fills listeners in on the past 17 years of her life. Luckily for Lavigne, aside from youth, she does have talent. So if 17-year-old newcomer Avril Lavigne truly wants to be "Anything But Ordinary," as she sings on her debut album, Let Go, she'll have to dig deeper. And as mass-produced teen pop makes its exit and a glut of young singer/songwriters enter, child prodigies no longer have built-in marketing appeal. Talk about pressure - being under 21 and having a record deal no longer qualifies as extraordinary.