Who are they?
Well, they're not teenagers. Michael Szpiner, Quentin Delafon and Dorian Dumont are Paris-born twentysomethings who purvey French pop of a different order.
Different in what way?
If you thought France produced only euro-fromage and Daft Punky dance music, you're wrong. The Teenagers' thing is anglicised synth-pop laced with explicit language: imagine Serge Gainsbourg fronting Depeche Mode. Their first release, Homecoming, raised eyebrows because of frontman Delafon's robustly Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. Delafon protested: "We're a sexual band. We're the Teenagers, and that's what you think about when you're a teenager."
So they're a sweary bunch. But beyond the novelty of hearing the f-word in a French accent, why should we care?
Because there is more to them than that. The tunes stand up as three-minute synth-symphonies, thanks to Dumont's history as a composer of orchestral chillout music, and the lyrics sparkle with geeky wit. Take new single Starlett Johansson: "When I noticed Jared Leto, I felt sad/ When I noticed Josh Hartnett, I prayed for 40 nights."
Where can I hear them?
There are four tracks at myspace.com/theteenagers.
