Lavigne vs. Rubinoos: Not-So-Fast "Friend"s!

Kudos to our own Brett Milano for predicting the current legal skirmish between Avril Lavigne and the Rubinoos. S&V online readers will recall that, in his review of Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing, Brett was among the first (and possibly the first) to point out the similarity between Lavigne's "Girlfriend" and the Rubinoos' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend":

"There's no denying that the opening 'Girlfriend' is one of the catchiest singles of the year, with an energy that nearly knocks you over. One big problem, though: It's a direct rip-off of the Rubinoos' late-1970s power-pop nugget 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.' In fact, it's practically the same song — 'Get Off of My Cloud' quote and all. Since nobody from the Rubinoos gets a songwriting credit, we can only hope that they've already got their lawyers on the line."

And so it came to pass! Billboard.com's Larry LeBlanc helped break the story on Thursday in his post, Seventies Band Sues Lavigne Over "Girlfriend." Included therein were the following choice tidbits from Lavigne's manager, Terry McBride: