New Avril Lavigne Album Due In April

December 18, 2006, 10:05 AM ET

Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Avril Lavigne’s third studio album has been christened “The Best Dam Thing” and will be released in April via RCA. First single “Girlfriend” will hit U.S. radio outlets in February. “I promise you guys will LOVE this record — it is my favorite one,” she writes on her MySpace.com site. “And I can’t wait! It is really fast, fun, young, bratty, aggressive, confident [and] cocky in a playful way … all the good stuff.”

Lavigne says she was inspired to make a more up-tempo album after spending “so much of my time playing live shows. I wanted to make sure the songs were fun — fun for the fans and myself. I will only have like three slow songs on the record.”

“The Best Dam Thing” will be the follow-up to 2004’s “Under My Skin,” which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and launched the Hot 100 hits “My Happy Ending” (No. 9) and “Don’t Tell Me” (No. 22). The album has sold 2.93 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Lavigne also contributed the new song “Keep Holding On” to the RCA soundtrack for “Eragon,” which just opened in U.S. theaters.

article taken from BillBoard.com