Avril Lavigne’s lastest nugget of angsty delight hit iTunes on Monday, and has already soared past Bruno Mars and Katy Perry to nab the No.2  spot behind Ms Spears’ ‘Hold It Against Me’. It’s the first single from her fourth studio album ‘Goodbye Lullaby’ (due March 8), and although we’re not quite hearing the promised evidence of a more mature Avril (it certainly doesn’t sound like the offering of a recent divorcée), it is undeniably, arrestingly catchy.

Despite her absence from the charts we’ve grown fonder of Avril over the last year or so. Mainly because we’re highly impressionable tweens at heart, and so when ‘Keep Holding On’ featured in Season One of Glee and then Cher Lloyd sang the crap out of ‘Girlfriend’ on X-Factor we were reminded of her in the most favourable light possible. And irritating though it can be when a woman in her mid twenties looks and sings like a 14-year-old (‘yeah’ & ‘woah’ are to Avril what ‘uh’ is to Britney), she does come up trumps when it comes to peppy, infectious girlypunk. You can try to resist, we say don’t bother.

Why we love What The Hell:

1. The lyrics. They’re just so darn sympathetic. Who among us hasn’t at times needed to “be a little crazy” and wanted nothing more than to “mess around”?

2. The barest, faintest, flicker of pain: “You can’t save me”, “You never call or listen to me anyway”. We’re imagining Avril in a Skins-type scenario, starved of affection from the one she truly loves, and therefore doing the natural thing, ie: put it recklessly about. “Yeah, I am messing with your head, When I’m messing with you in bed”- Effy anyone?

3. The tune. It’s VERY similar to Girlfriend. But we loved Girlfriend as well, so that’s fine.

4. The pure shamelessness of a 26 year old refusing to grow up . Obstinate, foolhardy party-pop, let it wash over you…

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