The Teenagers – Reality Check (XL/Merok)
March 17th, 2008
5.3/6.0
Started as a joke on MySpace, Parisian trio the Teenagers have grown into being one of the most unique and honest bands around. Opener Homecoming is like a musical version of a porn flick, making CSS’s risqué lyrics sound about as inoffensive as High School Musical. Narrow-minded critics call them cheap and misogynistic, yet all they do is confirm that men are bastards and present an accurate description of the times. Hence Reality Check. See?
This arrogant, cocksure attitude is like a character from a Bret Easton Ellis novel – only without the nihilism – and it sets the tone for the whole record. Sexy frontman Quentin Delfon is as smooth as they come, his nonchalant monologues set against a mileau of electro synth-pop. However, he relinquishes some of the limelight for Dorian Dumont and Michael Szpiner, who chime in on the choruses of numerous songs.
Album highlight Love No begins thunderously, detailing an unsatisfied girlfriend’s plight with her laddish lover. Elsewhere there is escaping the riots of the French capital (Streets of Paris), a sweet tale of romantic yearning (French Kiss), and an obsession with film star Scarlett Johansson (the rather unsubtly titled Starlett Johansson). In fact, the album is brimming with pop culture references (“# If Ben Affleck wasn’t making movies/Would the world be better? #“), and the band rely on the listener’s knowledge of modern society just as much as the listener relies on the music and lyrics on show here.
And there, in a nutshell, is the magic of The Teenagers. One could cynically say that this album is no more than a celebrity magazine given an electro makeover. Yet, for all their superficiality, The Teenagers are pretty much accurate with their portrayal of a youth culture that revolves around relationships, drinking and fucking. Only once or twice does the momentum drop.
Some might say they have never stopped being a joke band, but the reality is that the Teenagers make The Kooks, The View, The Enemy et al look like the biggest jokes of all. It is difficult to see what their next step will be, but for now the Teenagers are the best new band around.
words: Stephen Grindrod
The Teenagers tour the UK throughout April.
Stephen Grindrod is an English teacher originally from Manchester but currently living in Spain where he drinks the cheap beer and eats the free tapas at an alarming rate. In his free time, and there´s a lot of it, he reads, watches films, plays/writes folk/country songs on guitar and ukelele, writes short stories (he´s too unimaginative and impatient to write a novel), and occassionally contributes to the Motel, frequently submitting his work long after the deadlines have passed.