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By Ellen Whyte

UNLESS you have switched off your phone, cancelled the newspaper, and unplugged the TV and radio, you will definitely know that Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Tour will kick off at 8pm in Stadium Merdeka, Kuala lumpur on August 29.

The singer has been touring the US and her native Canada since July 25. she plans to visit the Far east, starting with us, and then moving on to Seoul, Manila, Taipei, and finally 11 concerts in Japan.

Although she's described as a punk/rock singer, strangely enough Avril started her singing career in church. Her mother heard her sing along to hymns when she was just two and was surprised at how good Avril's renditions were.

When Avril was 14, she confirmed her mum's thoughts by winning a competition that put her on stage next to another Canadian singer, Shania Twain. Avril's performance was good enough to earn her more work as well as a professional manager. Her career has been skyrocketing ever since.

Her first album Let Go which was released in 2002, sold over 16 million copies. Its huge success led to her being named Best New Artist at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. Since then she has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, and had six international no. 1 songs - an effort that netted her an income of some US$12 million (RM39 million) a year and made Forbes magazine rank her no. 7 in their Top 20 Earners Under 25 list last December.

Avril is also making a bomb from releasing her music online. Her single Girlfriend which was released on Feb 7 last year, reportedly became YouTube's most popular video of all time on July 18 when it received over 92,600,000 views. However, controversy set in when accusations of download rigging began to fly.

Now the dust has apparently settled as it was reported recently that the singer has already earned US$1 million from YouTube fees. Not bad for someone who will only be 24 on Sept 27!

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(c) 2008 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Source: New Straits Times

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