Only the most reclusive of cave dwellers can have failed notice the growing obsession with American teen culture that has infected these shores over the past couple of years. From American Pie to Dude Where's My Car, US teen mania has gradually become big business, and like any other self respecting youth movement, it requires a relevant soundtrack to express all its hopes and fears.
The likes of Blink 182, Eminem, and even Slipknot are all very well up to a point. What was clearly required, however, was a kind of Limp Bizkit-lite, a band with whom semi-disillusioned youths could serve a probationary period of self indulgent navel gazing before selling their soul to that nasty Mr Durst and his scary friends.
Wheatus, it seems, are more than happy to take on this role. On their recent chart-topping debut single 'Teenage Dirtbag' they come on like a bunch of twenty-five year old extras from Saved By The Bell, desperately trying to convince us that, having no doubt left school some ten years before, they still feel and understand the pitiful neuroses of teenage sexual inadequates everywhere.
The response from the kids has been amazing. 'Teenage Dirtbag' is still enjoying heavy radio play, and Wheatus have set their stall out as the premier purveyors of insufferably catchy, watered down, uber American frat rock.
None of which is necessarily a problem until, that is, one encounters their eponymously titled debut album. What Wheatus do well, namely slightly inane, no brainer pop rock, they do very well. The moment they attempt anything more three dimensional, however, their considerable limitations are laid bare for all to see.
The somewhat half-hearted and completely unnecessary version of Erasure's 'A Little Respect' is a good case in point. When surrounded by the less than erudite 'kick ass, jerk off, punk bitch' lyrics that are liberally peppered throughout the rest of this album, what was once a sweet and tender pop ballad, could not sound less sincere unless it were sung by Mr Disingenuous, Alan Partridge himself.
Elsewhere, 'Hump 'Em and Dump 'Em', a tender paean to the Clinton impeachment process, suffers similar credibility problems. Wheatus are at their strongest when pedalling the lobotomised teen inanities and hyper choruses most successfully exhibited on 'Teenage Dirtbag'. Sadly, however, on the evidence of their album debut, this is where the limits to their ambition both begin and end.
