Avril Lavigne Sued And Criticized For Two Songs On New Album
Wednesday July 04, 2007 @ 06:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Avril Lavigne

Is Avril Lavigne a thief? That still has to be proven, but the young Canadian singer has come under heat for two tracks from her The Best Damn Thing album that may not be as original as its songwriting credits claim.

Tommy Dunbar of the '70s group The Rubinoos filed a lawsuit in California's Northern Federal District Court on Monday claiming that there are more than coincidental similarities between his "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and Lavigne's smash, "Girlfriend." The suit names Lavigne, her songwriting partner Dr. Luke and Avril Lavigne Publishing.

Manager Terry McBride hired a musicologist who judged that the two songs are completely different, which he says makes the claim baseless. But the Nettwerk Music Group CEO may still suggest settling the suit out of court if it appears that legal expenses for mounting a defence will be too high for his client.

While Chantal Kreviazuk hasn't taken legal action, she claims that she should receive some credit for The Best Damn Thing's "Contagious." The singer/songwriter collaborated on six songs from Lavigne's 2004 album, Under My Skin. Kreviazuk's husband, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida, produced five of that record's tracks. Lavigne even moved in with the couple at the time, but the relationship has apparently soured.

"I mean, Avril, a songwriter?" Kreviazuk said in the June issue of Performing Songwriter magazine. "Avril doesn't really sit and write songs by herself or anything."

Kreviazuk also questioned Lavigne's ethics in the interview.

"That's why I'll never work with her again. I sent her a song two years ago called 'Contagious' and I just saw the track listing to this album and there's a song called 'Contagious' on it — and my name's not on it. What do you do with that?"

Evan Taubenfeld of Los Angeles band The Black List Club collaborated with Lavigne on four songs on The Best Damn Thing, including "Contagious." He told the Globe And Mail that Kreviazuk had no input into it.

"The only thing I can say is that Avril and I wrote a song called 'Contagious' for my record. We started it from scratch. We wrote it at her house and we wrote a 100-per-cent original collaboration that only her and I were part of, and that we came up with the concept for it on the spot. I was going to use it for my record, and then at the last second she used it on her record."