It looks like everyone’s favorite Canadian (after Alex Trebek, Michael J. Fox, and the late Peter Jennings) is having a bit of trouble with the mother tongue. It’s been getting her quite frustrated (thanks for the tip Mona):
Napanee, Ontario native Avril Lavigne is showing appreciation for her fans around the world, and looking to sell a lot more albums, by recording her new “Girlfriend” single in eight different languages.
While some detractors aren’t convinced that Lavigne has mastered English yet, her annoying single can now be heard in Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. Lavigne even went so far as trying to record it in Hindi, but the language was too difficult to match the song’s western rhythm, said manager Terry McBride in a Canadian Press interview following his keynote address at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel as part of the Canadian Music Week conference. McBride said that Portuguese was the hardest language to learn, next to Hindi, and that the singer spent hours studying foreign language recordings before going into the studio to record the song. [Link]
Obviously Lavigne, an icon of the punk rock movement, didn’t have the right Hindi tutor. I’m sorry but am I the only one offended here? Don’t be tellin’ me that Mandarin is any easier than Hindi. Why do Indians always seem to get shafted? Why did she have to make the Hindi version of her song match the white man’s “western rythym?” So let’s watch the video together and imagine it in Hindi. Lavigne, you’ve let us down this time.
Actually, it’s an open secret in the Canadian music industry that Adams is actually 78 years old. (Canadians age remarkably well, it has something to do with poutine, bur I forget exactly what.)
Canada also gave us Barenaked Ladies and Bryan Adams, so don’t apologize too much for Nickelback.
What? Hindi and Western rhythms don’t mix? Didn’t anyone hear any of the Hindi soundtracks coming out late 2005? Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena? Garam Masala? Ek Ajnabee? Lots of songs with obvious (and in some places ripped off) western sounds. (Now things are swinging back towards a more traditional or at least more grown-up sound…) It’s a copout cos Avril can’t pronounce ‘ladka’ .. hehehe
Anyway, I’m not offended that she didn’t record in Hindi – it’s probably a blessing 🙂
“Canada also gave us Barenaked Ladies and Bryan Adams”
then again some us would like them to apologize for those two as well. I have actually never understood the love a lot of desis have for Bryan Adams. He must be a god in India.
Apology accepted, but I’m still waiting for someone to take responsibility for this guy. Thanks for Rush, Feist, Broken Social Scene, The Tea Party, and Planet Josh, though.
I can give you some input into why Hindi may have been difficult. I grew up in India and have learned five European languages, two of them like a native speaker and the others getting there, but I still speak lousy Hindi. I wanted to learn Tamil but couldn’t find a good class.
Indian languages have no good learning materials or teachers, period. India is linguistically stuck in a sort of Dark Ages that treats language like a literary construct rather than a medium of communication. We have no concept of professional language study. I’m not surprised this lady found Hindi difficult compared to Mandarin. Hindi is incomparably a simpler language in terms of grammar, vocabulary and phonetics for English speakers to grasp, but the available materials and instructors for Mandarin are incomparably clearer and easier to grasp.