As if I know anything about this. Actually, I do.

I’ve long been a fan of The Rubinoos, a Bay-area power pop band that had a few minor hits in the late 1970s, including “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” from 1979’s “Back to the Drawing Board!” It’s an excellent example of what power pop was at that point - two guitars, bass and drums; harmonies and handclaps, relentlessly uptempo, still innocent but with a wink and a nod in the opposite direction. Most of all, as The Knack’s Doug Fieger once said of the genre in general, it sounds like the headphones are flying off in the studio, they’re having so much fun. If you’re so inclined the song can be heard here, on the Rubinoos’ MySpace page.

But - as I suppose it so often does - fun has turned to legal frolic as the band is suing Avril Lavigne for plagiarizing the song for her hit “Girlfriend.” There are definite similarities. But in a lot of respects, this seems more like sour grapes. In a just world “Boyfriend” would have been as big a hit as “Girlfriend” is, but we’ve already established that there’s no justice in rock and roll. And the Rubinoos now just seem to be tarnishing what legacy they did leave. They might have been happy that Lavigne thought enough of their song to rip it off, if in fact that’s what she did.

Then again, this may have the effect of exposing a newer generation to a band they never knew existed. I’m sure they’ll think the Rubinoos hopelessly cheesy whereas Lavigne is more “hard-boiled, foul-mouthed, fedup, emotionally self-sufficient and unforgiving,” as David Brooks put it (TimesDelete).

But underneath it all, the song remains the same.