Charli XCX - !Francheskaar!

Get a proper job! Get a haircut! When are you going to grow up?

These are some of the comments that get leveled at me every day - why can’t they understand? Don’t they know that we realise it’s all so pointless and tragic. Still enough about us over thirties, what about those poor misunderstood teenagers, full of anger and armed to the teeth with mater and pater’s money? Okay, so maybe I’m being flippant, but they don’t exactly make it easy to sympathise with them. Fortunately, some of these tormented souls are articulate enough to express their pain. That or just bang about on a synthesiser with their geeky mate like the bastard offspring of Nathan Barley and The Mighty Boosh. Hello, Charli XCX, I feel a teenage flaming coming on…

‘!Francheskaar!’, the phonetic debut single from the aforementioned proper Charli is a hormone-charged techno-bitch about the most popular girl in school, er, Francesca. Old skool synths, big beats and 32-bit samples (the sting comes from ‘R-Type Final,’ if i’m not mistaken) go head on with dayglo lip gloss mockney screams (”They all love you!”) and nursery rhymes (”they want your hair, your skin, your eyes/I tell no lies”), all mp3′d and put on your myspace/facebook/bebo site to show everyone ‘wot a bitch’ she is. Authenticity wise, it makes Kate Nash look as credible as the Krays (I unashamedly liked that album, but could still see it was a crock of pony and trap re. being genuine) - she’s from Herts, has a mate called ‘Alpha Geek’ and a huge music room for her entertainment. Skins posh-kid city. It also has the catchy appeal of Mason Vs Princess Superstar’s version of ‘Perfect’ minus the rudery, so it will stick. Damn.

There is also something undeniably cold-eyed and cynical about this - like Crystal Castles. All gen’d up and dangerous, like some kind of almighty marketing ploy - trashbat.co.ck. The idiots have taken over and my god it looks like they weren’t so stupid after all. God help us all.

Oh and there are a whole slew of remixes, reinforcing even further the image of a marketable mannikin - you want it more 80’s? No problem. Hardfloor? Done! Blimey, Mr Black even does two remixes, one called funky and one called beat. This is post irony at it’s scariest. Trying to be the new MIA without the confusing political stance and a touch of Kate Nash/Lily Allenery? Big label wet dream!

But I do love that R-Type sample, curse my ears.