Well, that awkward goth phase didn't last long! With all the impatience of an ADD-riddled teen rebel, Avril Lavigne ditched the gloomy façade of her sophomore Under My Skin and dove back into the well-scrubbed mosh pit for her third album, The Best Damn Thing. Frankly, the change in pace comes as a bit of a relief. The serious Avril on Under My Skin never felt genuine -- the shift from the exuberance of Sk8er Boi to the meandering ruminations of Don't Tell Me and My Happy Ending seemed sudden and forced, a misguided attempt to prove that Lavigne was a serious songwriter -- so as soon as The Best Damn Thing opens with the bright bubblegum blast of Girlfriend and its cheerleader chant, everything within Avril's world seems right again. If anything, this third album feels even more adolescent than her aggressively catchy-n-shallow debut, Let Go, perhaps because this is an album where Avril is allowed to run wild. She can curse, spit, and strut to her heart's content, she can taunt her rivals and steal their boyfriends, then bitch out the boy for not understanding her once he belongs to her. She impatiently rushes through the power ballads -- there are only three of them, all impeccable melodic anthems designed to keep the crossover adult audience Let Go won, all better than their equivalents on Under My Skin -- because she can't wait to get back and raise hell like the spoiled brat that she's thrilled to be. Avril swears like she's just discovered profanity, cheerfully spitting out four-letter words (and their compounds) with glee, but everything she does here she does with unrestrained glee. She truly believes she's the best damn thing you've ever seen, she knows it's all about her -- or, as she shouts on I Don't Have to Try, "I wear the pants!" -- and if you don't agree, she knows you're wrong and you can go to hell (actually, she'd probably say something a lot stronger).

1		Girlfriend
2		I Can Do Better
3		Runaway
4		The Best Damn Thing
5		When You're Gone
6		Everything Back But You
7		Hot
8		Innocence
9		I Don't Have To Try
10		One Of Those Girls
11		Contagious
12		Keep Holding On