5 April 2007
With its cheerleader-chanting vocals and clapping rhythms, topped with a prominent “you’re so fine”, ‘Girlfriend’ certainly owes a tip of the metaphorical hat to Toni Basil’s 1981 smash hit ‘Mickey’. However, it was a late-’70s US power pop band called The Rubinoos who went lawyer-side at its similarities to the chorus of their 1979 single ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’: the parties settled out of court. (The Rubinoos also had an earlier version, though not the original, of Tiffany’s 1988 number one ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’.)
Whatever about its retro sound, ‘Girlfriend’ certainly feels like a step backwards for Avril Lavigne. Apart from the agreeably sneery key pre-chorus line “She’s, like, so whatever” we’re missing the weapons-grade skater-teen ‘tude of ‘Complicated’. Instead, this is bubblegum power pop of the naffest kind, with a side-order of crassness, as if Katy Perry were a tweenage Bay City Roller. The lyrics are the most embarrassing kind of lazy doggerel and not-so-near rhymes: “You’re so fine, I want you mine, you’re so delicious / I think about you all the time, you’re so addictive”. ‘Girlfriend’ makes ‘Mickey’ seem cool by comparison. So whatever.
