Avril Ramona Lavigne

Only a month after completing The Best Damn Tour, Lavigne began recording in her home studio in November 2008 with the song "Black Star", written to help promote her first fragrance of the same name. By July 2009, nine tracks had been recorded for the new album, including the songs "Fine", "Everybody Hurts" and "Darlin". Several of the tracks were written in Lavigne's youth. "Darlin" was the second song Lavigne wrote as a 15-year-old while living in Napanee, Ontario. Lavigne described the album as being about "life". She stated, "It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing." The album is expected to be a return to Lavigne's older musical style and may be largely acoustic. With the exception of the album's lead single, "What the Hell", Lavigne described the songs on the album as different from her earlier material: "I'm older now, so I think that comes across in my music, it's not as pop-rock".
In January 2010, while simultaneously writing and recording for her new album, Lavigne worked with Disney clothing designs inspired by Tim Burton's feature film, Alice in Wonderland. She asked the executives if she could write a song for the film. The result was the song "Alice", which was played over the end credits and included on the soundtrack, Almost Alice.
On 28 February, Lavigne gave a performance at the concert portion of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, performing "My Happy Ending" and "Girlfriend". Lavigne was honoured to perform at the ceremonies, but she regretted not being able to attend the U.S. vs. Canada hockey match. "They had us on lockdown. We weren't allowed to leave our trailers, for security purposes."
In September 2010, Lavigne's third single from her debut album, "I'm With You", was sampled by Rihanna on the track "Cheers (Drink to That)", which is featured on Rihanna's fifth studio album, Loud. In August 2011, she was featured in the music video for Cheers (Drink To That). "It's exciting to me because that was always one of my favorite songs, and for it to come out 10 years ago and so now to have it sampled and back out on the radio is pretty dope". In December 2010, American singer Miranda Cosgrove released "Dancing Crazy", a song written by Lavigne, Max Martin and Shellback. It was also produced by Martin. On 23 September 2011, Lavigne appeared in the Hub network show Majors & Minors as a guest mentor, alongside other singers including Adam Lambert and Leona Lewis. About the show, Lavigne stated, "I sang for them, and they performed for me. I was just blown away. I got to talk to them about music and the music industry, and they were all just so excited".