[7] The Best Damn Thing had sold over 6 million copies worldwide and it is Lavigne's third best-selling album.

The second single of the album, "When You're Gone", also received commercial success, peaking within top ten in many single charts worldwide, including Canada, Australia, Scotland, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom, while peaking at number 24 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

[citation needed] In late 2006, Lavigne declared in a blog post that she wanted to record more upbeat music, citing the material on her upcoming album as "fast, fun, young, bratty, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way ... all the good stuff".

[10] Many of the sessions involved ordering take-out and drinking alcohol, with songs such as "Girlfriend" and "I Can Do Better" being written while inebriated.

[10] The songs were described as sounding like Toni Basil cheerleading for Blink-182,[11] with Lavigne praised for her ability to combine bubblegum pop melodies with punk rock riffs.

[1] Lavigne described the record as "fast, fun, young, bratty, rock, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way...all the good stuff".

Travis Barker of Blink 182 and +44, recorded some of the drums for the album as did Josh Freese & Sum 41's drummer Steve Jocz when Lavigne and her party could not reach Dave Grohl.

The opener and lead single, "Girlfriend", was written by Avril Lavigne and Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, who also produced the song.

"Girlfriend" is a moderately fast pop-punk,[15][16] song at 152 beats per minute, performed in the key of D major.

[17] "Girlfriend" is available in seven other languages, the only difference from the English version being the chorus translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, German and French.

[5] On 25 May 2007, songwriters James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar sued Lavigne, her co-songwriter Lukasz Gottwald, Almo Music, and RCA Records, claiming that "Girlfriend" contains lyrics plagiarized from their song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", originally performed by The Rubinoos and released by Beserkley Records in 1978.

[24] Music critics also noted very close similarities between the introductions of "I Don't Have to Try" and Peaches' 2003 song "I'm the Kinda".

[26] The track "Alone" (the B-side of "Girlfriend") was made available for download on the iTunes Store in New Zealand and Australia on March 29, 2007.

Lavigne also made her debut on the worldwide fashion website Stardoll to promote "The Best Damn Thing".

The single also reached number one in twelve other countries across the world including Australia, Canada and Japan.

Released on June 19, 2007, while "Girlfriend" was still strong on the charts, the power ballad became another hit in the UK and other countries.

"Innocence" was released as a radio single for Italy and Canada,[citation needed] and managed to chart in the latter.

Demi Lovato was the opening act for some of the dates in the second leg of the North American part of the tour.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, who led the protests, claimed "[Lavigne's performance] is considered too sexy for us" and "it's not good for viewers in Malaysia".

"[2] Alex Macpherson of The Guardian gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, calling it "a triumphant comeback", describing it as "a high-octane blast on which she is having the time of her life.

"[46] Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone praised the album for being "totally fearless about targeting pop radio and rather expert in its execution.

"[44] Tim O'Neil of PopMatters was positive towards its uptempo songs, calling it "strong pop-punk turns", while considering the ballads "regrettable".

However, O'Neil praised Lavigne for making "the brave decision to measure artistic maturity with no one's yardstick but her own.

"[42] In a more mixed review, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that "as an album, 'The Best Damn Thing' is too relentless to be heard end to end",[41] while Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine was more critical of the album's unexpected move, calling it "a big step back for an artist who was just starting to grow up.

The Best Damn Thing debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 286,000 copies, according to data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan for the chart dated 5 May 2007.

[54] After three months of its release the album was certified Platinum in the United States RIAA for reaching sales of 1 million copies.

In its second week of release, after Lavigne's Music Station performance, it reached the number-one spot, selling 120,000 copies.

The album debuted at number one in over twenty countries and sold 784,000 copies in its first week worldwide.