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Teenage Dirtbag

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Released
  
July 17, 2000

Recorded
  
2000

Length
  
4:07

Format
  
CD single

Genre
  
Power pop, pop rock

Label
  
Columbia

"Teenage Dirtbag" is a song and debut single by American pop rock group Wheatus. It was released in July 2000 as the lead single from their eponymous debut album. The song was written by lead singer Brendan B. Brown and was inspired by a childhood experience of his.

Contents

The song was massively successful in Australia, spending four weeks at number 1, being certified 3× Platinum and becoming the second best-selling single of the year. It also reached number 2 in Ireland, Germany and the United Kingdom, where it was certified Platinum in 2013. It has sold 5 million copies worldwide as of 2014.

Background

"Teenage Dirtbag" is about a childhood experience that Wheatus frontman Brendan B. Brown had. In a 2012 interview with Tone Deaf, he said: "It came from the summer of 1984 on Long Island, when I was 10 years old. That summer in the woods behind my house, there was a Satanic, drug-induced ritual teen homicide that went down; and the kid who did it was called Ricky Kasso, and he was arrested wearing an AC/DC T-shirt. That made all the papers, and the television, obviously; and here I was, 10 years old, walking around with a case full of AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Metallica [songs] – and all the parents and the teachers and the cops thought I was some kind of Satan worshipper. So that's the backdrop for that song." Brown also added that the song's sing-a-long chorus remains an act of defiance: "so when I sing: 'I'm just a teenage dirtbag', I'm effectively saying: 'Yeah, fuck you if you don't like it. Just because I like AC/DC doesn't mean I'm a devil worshipper, and you're an idiot.' That's where it comes from."

In the same interview, regarding on the possible reasons for its continued success, Brown recalled his father's words: "Every teenager has to go through that 'being an outsider' thing, at least a little bit. So that story is still the same for people, even if it's thirty years after I went through it."

The song is performed by Brown, including the segment in a high pitched falsetto voice. When the group arranged a joint tour with MC Frontalot, MC Frontalot contributed a nerdcore rap verse to the song, as did MC Lars.

Critical reception

Ayhan Sahin of Billboard magazine reviewed the song favorably, calling it a "gritty, on-the-edge track " and saying that its "keen melody, inventive production, and cool lyric about those who have felt like underlings during high school will entice listeners who prefer hanging out behind the gym with a smoke to Latin club." He went on to say that it "stands strongly on its own as an emphatic anthem and a song many teens will be proud to push hard from their car speakers."

In June 2013, Australian radio station Triple J ranked "Teenage Dirtbag" as number 82 on their "Twenty years of Triple J's hottest 100".

The song was ranked number 69 on the "Top 100 Greatest Pop Songs of All Time" countdown by British music channel The Hits.

Commercial performance

In the United Kingdom, the song peaked at number 2, staying there for two weeks and kept off the top spot by Atomic Kitten's "Whole Again". It spent four weeks at number one in Australia and also topped the charts in Austria and Flanders. Despite being a huge success in the UK, Europe and Australia, it failed to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking only at number 7 on the Alternative Songs chart.

In March 2011, the song returned to the UK Singles Chart at number 43 and climbed to number 35 the following week, nearly 11 years after its initial release. Bigtop40.com suggested that this was due to a promotion on iTunes. In April 2012, it re-entered the UK Singles Chart again, this time peaking at number 36; and then once again in March 2013, where it entered at number 46.

It has sold 5 million copies worldwide as of 2014.

Music video

The video reuses clips from the film Loser (2000), to tell a different story from the film, based instead on the song lyrics. Jason Biggs plays a nerdy character and Mena Suvari is the love interest who unexpectedly invites the protagonist to an Iron Maiden concert. In some versions of the music video a large glitter ball falls from the ceiling and strikes him on the head. He wakes up having fallen asleep while doing his homework, revealing his brief romance with Suvari to have been all a dream.

Track listing

US CD single
  1. "Teenage Dirtbag" (Clean Single Version) – 4:17
  2. "I'd Never Write A Song About You" – 3:38
  3. "Pretty Girl" – 4:29
European CD single
  1. "Teenage Dirtbag" (Explicit Album Version) – 4:01
  2. "I'd Never Write A Song About You" – 3:38
  3. "Sunshine" (Remix) – 2:52
French CD single
  1. "Teenage Dirtbag" (Explicit Album Version) – 4:01
  2. "I'd Never Write A Song About You" – 3:38
UK CD single
  1. "Teenage Dirtbag" (Explicit Album Version) - 4:01
  2. "I'd Never Write A Song About You" - 3:38
  3. "Hey Mr Brown" (With Club Audience) - 2:22
  4. "Teenage Dirtbag" (Video)
  • The song appears in the HBO miniseries Generation Kill at the end of episode four, Combat Jack. While driving away from a road block, USMC 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Sgt. Brad Colbert, Cpl. Ray Person, LCpl. James Trombley, Cpl. Walt Hasser, and Rolling Stone's embedded reporter Evan Wright (all occupants of the point Humvee) bust out singing it. When they are done singing it Colbert says "Thank you, Ray" and Ray responds, "Thank you, Sergeant."
  • British girl group Girls Aloud performed a cover of the song on their first UK tour for their album What Will the Neighbours Say? in the spring of 2005. They later recorded a studio version of the track for BBC Radio 1's 40th anniversary compilation Radio 1 Established 1967. In 2011, Weezer performed a cover of "Teenage Dirtbag" on their festival tour and Wheatus responded by covering 'My Name is Jonas' on their 2011 tour. This came about after a Twitter conversation between the two bands regarding the common mistake of people thinking the song is in fact a Weezer song. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain covers this song in concert. During the 2009 Glamour Kills tour, the song was also covered numerous times by All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth.. The song was covered by the Australian pop/punk rock band 5 Seconds of Summer on their YouTube channel. Indie rock band Tokyo Police Club performed a version of the song in July 2014 for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series.
  • The 2011 documentary Bully features a version of the song during the opening credits. This version is performed by Scala & Kolacny Brothers.
  • This is the theme song of American wrestler Nate Webb.
  • The song appeared in the Daria TV movie, Is it Fall Yet? at the Landon's Fourth of July BBQ.
  • English-Irish boy band One Direction covered the song as part of their Take Me Home Tour in 2013 and it was featured in their movie One Direction: This is Us
  • Australian-born rapper Iggy Azalea performed the song on the American television show Lip Sync Battle.
  • It was covered by Choir LaBinota in an advert for match.com in 2015.

    • Censorship

    The second verse of the song originally began with, "Her boyfriend's a dick/He brings a gun to school". Radio edits usually omitted the word "dick" or edit it so that it sounds like the less offensive "prick", but most modern versions of the song have the words "brings a gun to school" covered by scratching sounds. Some versions also edit the lines "And he'd simply kick/My ass if he knew the truth", to remove the word "ass".

    When asked why "gun" is frequently censored, Brown stated that it is because the day he presented the song to the band's record label was around the time of the first anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.

    References

    Teenage Dirtbag Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA