Capitol Records
Pop, 2014

5 Seconds of Summer claim to be a “pop punk” and “pop rock” band, which, if their self-titled debut effort is anything to go by, basically mean: “Unlike One Direction, we look like we actually have pubes.” Will anyone who claim to be punk be caught dead name dropping American Apparel in one of their songs?

At least Avril Lavigne’s hilariously “punk” Sk8ter Boi is about defying expectations and sleeping with smelly dirty tattooed men – after several gallons of alcohol, the song may at least have a tiny bit of punk spirit if we want to stretch the definition of the word to its limit.

On the other, we have She Looks So Perfect, which has this:

You look so perfect standing there
In my American Apparel underwear
And I know now, that I’m so down

Wow, punk.

The songs here are barely different from the fluff served up by various boybands of the moment who are trying to make hay while the sun shines. One Direction is nearing its expiry date, after all, and it won’t be long before someone decides he’s better off being solo and breaks the whole group up. There is nothing new here, and what’s more unfortunate is that the songs here hardly have the immediate hooks of the songs from One Direction. I guess either the folks behind this album are saving up to buy better music for the follow-up album or they can’t be bothered. At any rate, the only thing “punk” about these guys are – perhaps – how they are trying hard to be bad-ass douches. However, the CD I am listening to comes with a behind the scenes video of these guys hugging and pressing their bodies against one another while acting like they are the second coming of the Jonas Brothers, only this time they don’t have chastity rings so they are more “sexy” and “edgy” than those milquetoasts.

The words to Everything I Didn’t Say are self-fulfilling:

Wake me up now
And tell me this is all a bad dream
All the songs that I wrote
All the wrongs that I hoped would erase from your memory

Truest words they have ever put to music.