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Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)

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"Girlfriend"
Song
B-side"Alone"

"Girlfriend," a song by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, is the lead single from her third album, The Best Damn Thing (2007). It was produced by Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald. "Girlfriend" became Lavigne's biggest hit in the United States, where it reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It topped the chart in Australia for 6 weeks, and reached number two in the United Kingdom. A remix featuring rapper Lil Mama was released in June 2007.

Description

The song involves Lavigne proclaiming a crush on a boy currently with his girlfriend and features the typical 80' pop-punk influence and power pop of her earlier songs. Lavigne said on the DVD side of the deluxe edition of The Best Damn Thing that in the bridge when the listener hears hand clapping, the accompanying giggling was created by Lavigne and Gottwald, despite it sounding like a girl. The Japanese version of this song replaces the word motherfucking with the phrase "one and only" in the line "Hell yeah, I'm the motherfucking Princess". "Girlfriend" is in the video game Burnout Dominator in English, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese.[1] It also appears in Burnout Paradise but this time only in English. This song is recorded in 7 languages other than English.[2] It is the theme song of Japanese talk show Cartoon KAT-TUN - on which Lavigne appeared on May 2, 2007 - as well as being the insert song for popular Japanese manga based drama Hanazakari no Kimitachi e. It is featured in the theatrical trailer for the 2007 live-action Bratz film, and in a trailer for the film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and also for Bring It On: In It to Win It. Lavigne performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on June 15 2007.[3]

Release and chart performance

"Girlfriend" was premiered on Edmonton radio station The Bounce 91.7 before the official date it was supposed to be aired; the two DJs who played it were taken off the air shortly after. The single appeared and was available for download on the U.S. iTunes Store on February 23, but was subsequently removed the following day. It was made available again on February 27.

Because of digital download sales in excess of 122,000, the song debuted at number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, the highest debut of her career.[4] Afterwards it became Lavigne's first song to reach number one on the Hot 100, in the issue dated May 5, 2007; her previous highest peak on the chart was with 2002's "Complicated", which reached number two.[5] It remained in the top ten for eighteen weeks,[6] and has since been downloaded over 2.6 million times. [7]

"Girlfriend" debuted on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart at number three. The following week it reached number-one, and it remained at the top for six non-consecutive weeks, equaling Lavigne's previous number-one single on the ARIA Charts, "Complicated". After three weeks on the charts, it was certified gold by ARIA, then platinum after seven weeks for sales in excess of 70,000 copies.[8] It was then certified double platinum, sales in excess of 140,000.

On the UK Singles Chart, "Girlfriend" peaked at number two, surpassing "Complicated" as Lavigne's highest peaking single on the chart. The song ended 2007 as the years 20th biggest-selling single in the UK.[9]

In Latin America, the single peaked at number three.[10] In Mexico, the song became the second top ten single in English of 2007 when it climbed to number eight; it later peaked at number two.[11] It won the Award for "Canción del Año" (Song Of The Year) in "Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica 2007" (The Latin American MTV Awards) and was nominated for "Monster Single" in the MTV Video Music Awards 2007.[12][13] It won Addictive Track for the MTV Europe Music Awards

On Youtube.com the music video has been viewed with a total of 91,588,681 views, as of July 10, 2008. The music video is the second most watched video ever on Error:No page id specified on YouTube. The link would be [14]

Critical reception and lawsuit

Reviewers have noted that the chorus bears a resemblance to The Rubinoos' 1979 single "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", in which they sing "Hey hey, you you, I wanna be your boyfriend" similar to "Hey hey, you you, I want to be your girlfriend" in "Girlfriend".[15] The song can be heard on the Rubinoos' MySpace page.[16]

On May 25, 2007, Lavigne, her songwriter Lukasz Gottwald, her record label, and Apple Inc. were sued by James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar, songwriters for The Rubinoos, over claims that "Girlfriend" infringes their copyright on their 1979 song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend".[17] Lavigne's manager, Terry McBride, denied that "Girlfriend" was copied from "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and pointed out that "Boyfriend" itself is similar to The Rolling Stones' "Get off of My Cloud". McBride said he hired a musicologist to compare the songs; according to McBride the musicologist reported that the songs were totally dissimilar, even a different meter. Prominent music critics such as Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide have publicly noted that the song is a "total lift from the Rubinoos' song".[18] McBride said that Lavigne has no current plans to settle the case, but will consider the costs of defending the case against those of settling.[19] In January 2008, the lawsuit was settled and Gangwer and Dunbar released a statement saying that the similarities between the songs were based on "certain common and widely used lyrics" and that they "completely exonerate Avril and Luke from any wrongdoing of any kind in connection with the claims made by us in our lawsuit."[20]

Critics have compared the middle section of the song with the bridge from Toni Basil's "Mickey".[21]

The song was #35 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.[22] This song was also #77 on MTV Asia's list of Top 100 Hits of 2007.[23] Also was listed as the number 1 hit of 2007 according to MTV Latin America. [24]. Note, Grilfriend peaked as number one in the North/Central Latin American Version of "Los 100 Más Pedidos 2007" (The 100 Top Hits of 2007), whilist in the South Latin American Version of "Los 100 Más Pedidos 2007" it peaked at number 3, losing the first place to "With Love" by Hilary Duff.[25] "Girlfriend" also won the Best Song of the Year at the 2008 Kids' Choice Awards. It beat "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Don't Matter", and "Beautiful Girls".

"Girlfriend (Dr. Luke remix)"

"Girlfriend"
Song

Seven additional versions of the song are available to enhance its worldwide marketability with the chorus sung in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish language. The other parts of the song are in English.

There is also an edited version for radio, because of explicit lyrics. There are two official censored versions: one blanking the word "motherfucking" in the line "I'm the motherfucking princess" and the other replacing it with "I'm the one and only princess". It is played on Canadian and Malaysian radio stations, and on Z100 in New York City. However, on other radio stations the entire word is cut out or just the word "mother", as in the version on the clean edition of the album, is said.

The official remix was leaked onto the Internet in May 2007 and features rap verses from American hip-hop musician Lil Mama. Lavigne sings the chorus and bridge and Lil Mama's rap verses are substituted for the original verses. There is a boyfriend version of the song that is getting high rotation on Irish radio stations sung by Samuel Hamiliton. It was 2fm's song of the week during the first week of March, 2008 with a chorus of, "Hey hey, you you, I want to be your boyfriend...".

Versions
  • "Girlfriend" (explicit version)
  • "Girlfriend" (clean version)
  • "Girlfriend" (instrumental)
  • "Girlfriend" (radio edit)
  • "Girlfriend" (French version)
  • "Girlfriend" (German version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Italian version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Japanese version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Mandarin version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Portuguese version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Spanish version)
  • "Girlfriend" (Junkie XL mix)
Remixes
  • "Girlfriend" (Dr. Luke remix, featuring Lil Mama)
  • "Girlfriend" (Junkie XL remix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' time warp '66 mix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' French time warp '66 mix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' German time warp '66 mix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' Japanese time warp '66 mix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' Mandarin time warp '66 mix)
  • "Girlfriend" (The Submarines' Spanish time warp '66 mix)

Music videos

File:Avril-girlfriend.JPG
One of Lavigne's personae in a photo booth with a guy in the video.
File:Girlfriend-remix.JPG
Avril Lavigne and Lil Mama in the remix music video.

The world premiere of the music video was announced to be on MTV's Total Request Live and MuchMusic's MuchOnDemand on February 26. However, it premiered in New Zealand on Music Station C4 on February 20. It was in heavy rotation on European music TV channel VIVA Polska on February 23 as well.

The music video was filmed at Golf 'n' Stuff in Norwalk, California. It features two girls: one with an innocent persona, glasses and red hair (Lavigne), and one with an evil persona and black hair (also Lavigne) The black-haired rocker fights over the man with the red-haired girl and tries to outdo her repeatedly. She finally hits the girl in the head with a golfball, causing her to fall into water at the golf course, and then finally wins the youth's affections. Lavigne then takes her boyfriend into a bathroom stall and slightly opens the door after a moment and gives a thumbs up. Lavigne's boyfriend in the video is played by American model Bryan McMullin and dresses similarly to the "rocker" Lavigne in the video. The video features Lavigne's previous guitarist Evan Taubenfeld, and Lavigne's brother Matt on bass. It was directed by The Malloys.


"Girilfriend" Performance on Youtube"

As of July 14th the video of "Girlfriend" on youtube is just a couple of hundred thousand's short of becoming youtube's most watched video ever!The video is the most-viewed music video and the second all-time most-viewed video on the website YouTube with over 91 million views (after the Evolution of Dance by Judson Laipply). Controversy surrounds this though, as some believe that the RCA Records channel and fans are pushing for the video to overtake Evolution of Dance as the most-viewed. [5] Ironically, the music video received 20 million views in a matter of months after increasing views of Evolution of Dance and views doubled when CSS's "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" was tampered with to seem to have received 100 million views. Oddly enough, the video is still receiving millions of views over a year of release although it isn't seen on most-viewed weekly or monthly. "Girlfriend" was retired from the TRL countdown on June 4, 2007 and ended up being the most viewed music video on MTV.com in 2007. [26]The video won the award for "Best International Video by a Canadian" at the 2007 MuchMusic Video Awards. It was also the most demanded music video of 2007. The video received 2,544 plays in Canada in 2007.


Lil Mama and Lavigne shot a video for the remix of "Girlfriend"

Track listings

¹A code included on the CD to download the ringtone online.

Charts

Release dates

"Girlfriend" was released in a number of countries over a three-month period. The remix featuring Lil Mama was released on June 15 in Taiwan, and on July 25 in the United States.

Region Date
Canada February 7, 2007
United States
Spain February 10, 2007
El Salvador February 28, 2007
Mexico March 1, 2007
Venezuela
Peru March 10, 2007
Chile
Italy March 19, 2007
Japan March 21, 2007
Republic of Ireland March 30, 2007
Belgium
Australia March 31, 2007
United Kingdom April 2, 2007
Taiwan April 3, 2007
Netherlands April 4, 2007
Sweden
Cuba April 28, 2007

References

  1. ^ "Burnout Dominator Soundtrack Explodes", IGN Music, February 23 2007.
  2. ^ "EA ANNOUNCES THE ADRENALINE INFUSING SOUNDTRACK FOR BURNOUT PARADISE", Criterion Games, December 18 2007
  3. ^ Tonight Show with Jay Leno on NBC: Late Night TV Headlines and Videos - NBC Official Site
  4. ^ Jonathan Cohen, "Mims Remains 'Hot' At No. 1, Akon Stays Close", Billboard.com, March 8 2007.
  5. ^ Jonathan Cohen, "Lavigne Sweeps Charts As 'Girlfriend' Tops Hot 100", Billboard.com, April 26 2007.
  6. ^ Billboard Singles Charts - Billboard Top 100 Songs - Billboard Top 100 Singles
  7. ^ ATRL - Charts: Billboard Hot 100 (Top Singles) - Page 524
  8. ^ Top 50 Singles Chart - Australian Record Industry Association
  9. ^ BBC Music. "Top 40 Singles of the Year 2007 ". Retrieved 2007-12-30
  10. ^ Latin Top
  11. ^ Mexican Singles Chart Americatop100.com Retrieved on 18-06-07.
  12. ^ [1]
  13. ^ [2]
  14. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ25-glGRzI
  15. ^ Billboard Chart Beat Chat - Letter from Mark Sieber
  16. ^ Rubinoos' MySpace page
  17. ^ Apple Insider, [3]
  18. ^ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Billboard Magazine
  19. ^ Lavigne faces U.S. lawsuit
  20. ^ "Avril Cleared of Plagiarism Charges", OK! Magazine, January 15, 2008.
  21. ^ Hey Avril, the Rubinoos Called. They Want Their Song Back - A Beautiful Fraud | TVGuide.com
  22. ^ No byline (December 11, 2007). "The 100 Best Songs of 2007" Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2007-12-21
  23. ^ MTV Asia. "Top 100 Hits List". Retrieved 2007-12-27
  24. ^ puestos de los 100+ pedidos 2007 - mycµзmicαLяơmαпc&
  25. ^ Los 100+ Pedidos Mtv Sur 2007 [Argentina] - Hilaryfan.com
  26. ^ Avril Lavigne - "Girlfriend" | Music Video | Best Of 2007: MTV.com's Top 15 Music Videos | MTV
  27. ^ Top 40 Argentina, CAPIF Retrieved Lunes,2Jul,2007
  28. ^ a b c d e f "Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend global chart positions and trajctories". aCharts.us. Retrieved May 6 2007.
  29. ^ [4] Retrieved 11th May 2007
  30. ^ French Singles Chart 29.04.07 to 05.05.07
  31. ^ Official Indonesian Single Top
  32. ^ U.S. Billboard Hot 100
  33. ^ U.S. Billboard Pop 100
  34. ^ Global Track Chart
  35. ^ Mexico Top 100 Year-End Charts 2007
  36. ^ Mexico Top 100 Year-End Charts 2007
  37. ^ ARIA End of year sales
  • Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "Avril Lavigne Announces New Album + Single In Blog" [6].
  • MTV UK. "And she says her new album will be the Best Damn Thing you've seen..." [7].
  • Billboard. "New Avril Lavigne Album Due In April" [8].
  • Blender Magazine Online. "Shamelessly Anticipating Avril's New Album". January 18 2007, 1:39:24 PM [9].
  • Billboard.com. "Avril Sets Date for Clap Crappy New Album" [10].
  • Chile Top 40: [11]
  • [12]
  • Commentary on the video clip
Preceded by
"Straight Lines" by Silverchair
"Steer" by Missy Higgins
 Australian ARIA Singles Chart number-one single
April 9, 2007 – April 16, 2007
April 29, 2007 – June 3, 2007 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Billboard Hot 100 number-one single
May 5 2007 		Succeeded by
Billboard Pop 100 number-one single
May 5 2007
Preceded by United World Chart number-one single
May 5 2007 – May 26 2007

External links

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