Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Avril Lavigne's tiny face is eclipsed by a pitcher of beer that she has set about emptying. After the last swallow, she puts the pitcher back on the table, belches loudly and grabs a microphone in time to sing the opening notes of Creedence Clearwater Revival's version of "Suzie Q." It's 1 a.m. on the last day of a two-week trip that has taken her to Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo. Lavigne -- clad all in black, except for her silver skull-and-crossbones belt buckle and the dingy red, white and blue sweatband on her wrist -- is celebrating in a dark, private room at a fifth-floor karaoke joint in Tokyo with her band and a dozen or so Japanese record executives. She passes the mike to her drummer, Matt Brann, and convulses with laughter when he inserts the word fuck into every single line of the next verse. For the first time during four days of interviews, press conferences and TV appearances, Lavigne is having a blast -- and not simply because no one is stopping this eighteen-year-old from drinking as many pitchers of beer, glasses of wine and shots of tequila as she likes. And not because, at dinner, the label honchos in Japan gave her a pair of diamond-stud earrings, though it sure doesn't hurt. The more likely reason is that, for the first time in over a year, she's going to have a vacation; in just two days, she will be on a beach in Hawaii, slathered with SPF-30 sunblock.

After that, she heads to the Grammys, where she has been nominated for five awards in categories including Best New Artist and Song of the Year. ("It would be cool to win one," she says. "But even if I don't win, it's fine. I can still walk around the rest of my life, like, 'Once, I got nominated for a Grammy.' ") And then, starting March 3rd, the event she's been waiting a lifetime for: her first real tour. "My dream was always to hop up onstage in front of my fans every night and perform," she says. "That's what all of this was supposed to be about."

Not every artist gets to play arenas on her first headlining tour. Since "Complicated" hit the airwaves last spring, the teen-pop singer who is anything but "teen pop" has experienced phenomenal success, including 4 million in sales for her debut album, Let Go. "You can't really predict when an artist is going to become a teen icon," says L.A. Reid, president of Lavigne's label, Arista Records.

An icon, that is, who wears baggy pants, plastic bracelets and a scowl -- not the skimpy threads and Ultra brite smiles of Britney and Mandy and Beyonce and pre-"Dirrty" Christina. An icon who sings about crushes on skater boys and who listens to Blink-182 and who may or may not know who Sid Vicious was. An icon who had quite a bit of help writing the songs on Let Go but at least not from the Swedish hitmakers who write Backstreet Boys songs, or from the Neptunes, who write everything else.

Lavigne's blockbuster performance -- Let Go was the third-best-selling album of 2002 -- is surprising, but clever marketing has certainly helped. To a young audience tired of glitzy teen disco, Lavigne has been presented as a guitar-toting singer-songwriter. But it is unclear how much songwriting she does. You have to get by the handwritten lyrics and examine Let Go's liner notes very carefully to find out who wrote what, and the booklet contains photos of Lavigne's touring band, which doesn't actually play on the record.

And then there's the issue of her punk-rock cred, or lack thereof. It's a sore subject for Lavigne, who avoids using the p word these days. But her bandmates, all veterans of small-time punk bands, are quick to defend her. "I can totally understand why people would be pissed off at Avril," says rhythm guitarist Jesse Colburn, who used to play in an Ontario band named Closet Monster. "But it's not her fault. Punk pop is in right now, and someone out there thought they could capitalize on it with Avril. You can look kind of punky without listening to punk rock or writing punk-rock music."