Are you a fan of Avril Lavigne? Did you know she now comes in different languages?
In attempts to reach a wider audience, Avril Lavigne’s new single “Girlfriend” will be available with choruses in eight languages: English, Japanese, Mandarin, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
So, I listened to all these versions, and I have to say I enjoyed Japanese the most. The Mandarin is definitely the silliest, and the Portuguese is the most embarrassing because there are way too many syllables per verse.
I think it’s great that we can customize Avril. Don’t like her blonde? It’s OK, she’s a brunette and a redhead in this video. Don’t understand what she’s saying? We’ve got it covered. Avril can do really poor attempts at your native language (that is, if you come from a nation with enough capital to make a difference in her sales.)
melissah @ Fri, 04/06/2007 - 10:30pm
Considering how terrible Lavigne's new single is, her song certainly shouldn't exist in one language, let alone, eight different languages. Why did she ever bother resisting selling out? C'mon, she's another blond, skimpy-skirted, boy-crazed pop singer.
The customizability is pretty scary... it doesn't even seem to matter how horrible her pronunciation because apparently, her song is now #1 in Japan. This incident also goes to show the impersonality of music nowadays, as well as the horrors of horrors of cultural assimilation. The only saving grace about this is that Lavigne is not an American export, she's pure Canadian, so BLAME CANADA!