Don't wanna live in America no more? Try living within the detritus of our aging teenage mass culture. In the 1950s, the Teenagers were a doo-wop group who backed up Frankie Lymon on "Why Do Fools Fall in Love"; the Teenagers of today are a London- and Paris-based foursome whose songs work on the innocently sleazy assumption that "Beverly Hills 90210", American Pie, and Nada Surf's "Popular" showed U.S. high schoolers as they really are. Their 2007 single "Homecoming" ingeniously encapsulates this approach, pairing Jonathan Richman's wide eyes with the busily groping hands of Serge Gainsbourg. After a handful of other singles and remixes (including an excellent one of Simian Mobile Disco's "It's the Beat"), full-length debut Reality Check still can't match the Teenagers' first time, but it shows a developing group with their own distinct take on misspent youth in the era of free internet porn.
As with Art Brut or the Streets, their sound-- equal parts raw and mechanical, and a little lacking in variation-- isn't so much the point but it definitely fits their outlook. Smirking, French-accented lo-fi vocals earnestly sneer; tinny electronic beats, New Order guitars, and gleaming synths form a backing that's halfway between dance-punk and mall-punk. "I fucked her-- it was wild/ She's such a slut," frontman Quentin Delafon bluntly asserts on "Homecoming", before his American cheerleader tells the girls, "It was perfect, a dream come true/ Just like a song by Blink-182." So, it's a 1990s revival in a time of 1980s revival (and free internet porn).
When it's good, Reality Check can be Anthony-Michael-Hall-gets-Jennifer-Love-Hewitt good. "Love No", also given an optimistic electro-house remix by Spain's Delorean, is another "Homecoming"-style two-part conversation, with Delafon this time standing in for both boy and girl ("That movie Showgirls? I can't believe you're watching it again") as a battle of the sexes ends in cynical ceasefire. "But It's OK to stay with you/ I'm not in love, oh, oh," he sings. On "Feeling Better", which could be the Teenagers' theme song if there weren't already one called "We Are the Teenagers" on their Fuck Nicole EP, they humbly request your obsession, quote "Heal the World", and sell you their T-shirt. "Starlett Johansson" lists the birthdate, place, and life story of a certain Tom Waits-covering starlet. The Teenagers can be sensitive, too, like when asking what-ifs on the slow, gliding "Wheel of Fortune" about a world without Ben Affleck, or whether you would still do them if they had unibrows.
It's not always this good, and not just because that can all get to be slightly too much to take in larger than EP-sized doses. "III" amps up only to shout its ignorance a few times too shrilly. "French Kiss"-- hey, wait, I get it! ...French class! Sure, early song "Fuck Nicole" does have me cursing at total strangers, but I prefer "Homecoming" because it doesn't have this shade of menace. "Sunset Beach" brutally murders Jeff Buckley; "End of the Road" is slow, but not a slow jam. "Make It Happen" isn't about it, but it does yield this significant couplet: "And if we tell lies, we'll look at you straight in the eyes." Did you hear? He fucked her.
