Teenage Dirtbag
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"I've got two tickets to Iron Maiden, baby." -- "Teenage Dirtbag" (2000) by Wheatus |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
"Teenage Dirtbag" (2000) is a musical composition by Wheatus. It was 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.
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."
The song was ranked number 69 on the "Top 100 Greatest Pop Songs of All Time" countdown by British music channel The Hits.
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.
