Pop, Obv.: Avril Lavigne’s "Girlfriend"


Ties are so yesterday.

The new Avril Lavigne song, “Girlfriend,” is kind of amazing. Embracing her role as a newly blond pop star, Lavigne combines her trademark “punk” guitar riffs with a “Hollaback Girl” cheerleader beat — and it works! The “hey hey you you” chorus couldn’t be catchier and, at least on the version on her MySpace, it doesn’t sound too overproduced. If the rest of the album’s as enthusiastic as this, it might — might — knock off Let Go as her crowning achievement.

But what’s really noteworthy (and hilarious) about the song is that it sounds like it was written for the Laguna Beach soundtrack:

She’s like, so whatever
You could do so much better

I think we should get together, now
And that’s what everyone’s talking about

Granted, Paul McCartney’s rhyming couplets from the pre-Rubber Soul years weren’t exactly Wordsworth material, but c’mon, America. Why does our cultural consensus have to revolve around ditsy, vengeful Southern California blondes?

(Hear “Girlfriend” at MySpace; The Best Damn Thing is due out April 17)

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Pop, Obv. is a column about the star-maker machinery behind the popular song. For more installments, click below.