Hello Kitty

Avril Lavigne loves Sanrio's Hello Kitty products, and she penned this experimental electronic Dubstep track about the cute Japanese line. "I love Hello Kitty so much there's a song on the record called Hello Kitty. Pink is my favorite color... I'm really excited about this song," she gushed to Ryan Seacrest. "I'm obsessed with Hello Kitty and it's really fun and the sound is different." Hello Kitty is a fictional female white Japanese bobtail cat with a red bow that was created in 1974 by the Japanese company Sanrio. The character's first appearance on an item was a vinyl coin purse, and Sanrio has since groomed Hello Kitty into a global marketing phenomenon worth $5 billion a year.

Not only is this song about Lavigne's love of the Japanese brand but also has a double meaning. "Obviously it's flirtatious and somewhat sexual," she told Digital Spy, "but it's genuinely about my love for Hello Kitty as well!"

The Japanese-themed music video features Lavigne with four identical, expressionless Asian dancers in a variety of candy-colored locations, exaggerating Japan's kawaii (cute) culture. The clip swiftly became a talking point on social media sites where it was criticized for being culturally insensitive. Lavigne took to her own Twitter page to defend the visual against allegations of racism toward Japanese people, stating: "I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan."