Avril Lavigne has had a bitch of a year, but she hopes a new tour will bring back the fun

But to her core audience — teenage girls — none of the gender-political implications of all this really matter. Lavigne is still a venerable hit machine: The Best Damn Thing and its first single, "Girlfriend," both reached No. 1. And while her Best Damn Tour isn't filling the nation's concert halls quite as she hoped, there are still signs of life. Besides, she's having a blast just thinking about the show's "dancers, LED screens, checkered flooring, a pink sparkle drum kit, a pink piano, flags." Whew! Who has time to think bad thoughts or start a doll revolution when all that's going on?

But there's something different about the 23-year-old Lavigne. She's definitely not the teen who launched a hit- and money-making career more than five years ago. She certainly seems to have lost some of her youthful edge. It might have something to do with her 2005 marriage to Sum 41's Deryck Whibley. And maybe something to do with her eight-bedroom, $9 million Los Angeles palace. And quite possibly something to do with her new clothing and fragrance lines.

Then again, Lavigne doesn't exactly play to her strengths on The Best Damn Thing. Instead of the hard-driving rock anthems — like "Sk8er Boi" and "My Happy Ending" — and chewy power ballads — like "Complicated" and "Don't Tell Me" — that generated all that buzz in the first place, Lavigne stuffs her latest album with generic pop songs. Making matters worse, she occasionally sprinkles some experimental crap in there. Cripes — "I Don't Have to Try" is damn close to electroclash!

"I just [wanted to] write really fun songs that weren't serious and breakup boyfriend songs," she says. "My previous record was really dark and deep. I got that out, and I spent a whole year and a half singing those songs. Now I wanted to go and write really fun songs, so I can have fun and just jump around onstage and not be so dark."

Yet if you dig deep enough and give it some time to sink in, The Best Damn Thing includes some of Lavigne's catchiest songs — particularly the super-poppy "Girlfriend" and "I Can Do Better." But the fact that these karaoke-style sing-alongs are so few and far between probably explains why the album has sold only five million copies worldwide, compared to the combined $30 million from her first two CDs.

Lavigne clearly needed to do something to spark her career in the wake of these figures. So the one-time girl-next-door-approachable singer sexed up her image. Last year, she posed topless on the cover of Blender. Then bikini pics from a Miami vacation found their way online. And Maxim's March issue features a cover shot of Lavigne cupping one of her breasts while draped in a frilly pink top.

But none of these things could distract from the plagiarism accusations that have been hurled at Lavigne since The Best Damn Thing was released last April. First, the Rubinoos — who had an obscure power-pop song called "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" in 1979 — sued Lavigne, because her "Girlfriend" sounded an awful lot like their "Boyfriend." (The matter was settled out of court in January.) Then singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, who collaborated with Lavigne in the past, claimed that she and Avril worked together on a song called "Contagious." When a track called "Contagious" showed up on The Best Damn Thing, Kreviazuk's name was missing, and she threw a fit. (Kreviazuk later apologized for dragging the matter into public view.)

Last month, a group of dancers threatened to boycott the Los Angeles auditions for Lavigne's tour, alleging that the singer paid substandard rates. Meanwhile, tween faves the Jonas Brothers were tapped as concert openers. The blogosphere immediately called the move more than a little desperate, since tickets aren't selling all that well for the Best Damn Tour, and the world's biggest teen group would surely help move a few thousand.