The Teenagers - Homecoming

Dirty French lo-fi sex popsters, The Teenagers, release the single “Homecoming” through Merok Records (they who helped launch Klaxons) on May 7th.

The single is really quite splendid, in its own twisted sort of way. I had no idea that the French could produce this type of thing. I thought they could just churn out dance music to take drugs and tan to, à la Air, mind expanding laser shows and synths, à la Jean Michel Jarre, or rap and Paris riots, à la MC Solaar.

The song is basically the story of a boys rampant hormones, with “I met her hot step daughter, she's a cheerleader, she is a virgin and she is really tan”, and a girls quest for the perfect “first time” with “it was perfect, a dream came true, just like a song by blink182”.

It’s the combination of a dirty back lane romp and a pop-tastic stomp. Boasting all the sexuality of James Brown in his prime, and the degradation of having to sleep with his corpse. In fact, putting its overt sexism into context, lines such as “she is such a slut” and the chorus of “I fucked my american cunt” are about as degrading for the female character as me having to walk round Gary Glitter’s sex cave, wearing no clothes, other than knee-high silver platforms and a silver waistcoat, chanting “I’m the leader, I’m the leader”, whilst Glitter crouches on his honkers with a Malaysian boy called Ashraf hanging out of his back end, it really is that twisted.

When listening, you can’t help feel sorry for the female character, no matter how male and macho you want to be. She’s been completely used by this dirty French bastard, but still considers the whole thing to be “a romance”.

It makes me feel funny, actually. As if I’m reading the transcription from a rape scene caught on camera. It’s that really awkward feeling you get. You know sometimes when you forget how to walk? When someone you like has noticed you and you think that they’re watching you, and you totally forget how to walk, and subconsciously you’re really trying to concentrate on how to do it, but you just end up looking like you’ve shit your pants. Horrible.

Anyhow, it’s good. It’s offensive, it’s sexist, it makes you feel awkward, but it’s quirky, poppy and cool enough to get away with it.

Maybe it’s a modern day Romeo and Juliet, with the “MySpace generation” meeting each other online and fucking offline, whilst the parents are out selling fake Eiffel Tower’s and catching frogs.

Go get it.

It’s out on May 7th and in the meantime, you can grab yourself a listen over at their MySpace.