Does knowing you're acting like a vacuous asshole
make acting like a vacuous asshole okay French-born and London-bred
electro-pop trio The Teenagers sure hope it does on their snide debut, Reality
Check. On
the he-said/she-said sex anthem "Homecoming," a lothario brags about how he
"fucked my American cunt," while the, ahem, "slut" drones on in a Valley Girl
drawl about finding true love outside her SUV. Ho ho! The rest of Reality
Check is
equally feeble and witless, though The Teenagers' bored detachment is a
built-in defense mechanism against criticism. If songs like "Fuck Nicole" and
"Starlett Johansson" come off as obnoxiously soulless, well, that's the point,
silly! Apparently, the joke also entails banging out the same limp new-wave
riffs all the Duran Duran rip-offs from 2004 already flitted to death.
Regardless of whether Reality Check is "bad" or simply bad, The Teenagers belong on
the scrap heap.