“This is the part where I write a song,” announces guitarist Michael Clifford, somehow picking out London-based theme suggestions from the deafening teen screams like the most libidinous ever episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? The 30-second, one-note pop punk number he insta-composes is called Fish and Chips; last night it was Bangers and Mash. Even the improvised efforts of Australia’s biggest Fall Out Boyband are becoming formulaic – unsurprising, for the band writing the program code for net-generation pop success.
Little about the momentous rise of 5 Seconds of Summer, presumably named after a UK weather forecast for April, has been left to chance. Originally a bunch of baggy-vested teenage YouTube celebrities with millions of views for video covers of Chris Brown, Bieber and Wheatus, they wrote early material with a cross-section of pop and emo big-hitters – Good Charlotte, Busted, McFly, various One Direction writers – and were broken worldwide by supporting 1D in 2013. With last year’s second album Sounds Good Looks Good bagging them their second US No 1, they’re the sound of the industry’s morbid fixation on play counts and clickability ratios finally paying off.
Their total lack of arena spectacle, probably down to a chronic case of pyro aversion after Clifford’s hair caught fire on stage at Wembley last year, highlights their serious rock aspirations. A couple of foot-on-speakers guitar solos, a name-drop for Bad Brains and Clifford having stickers reading “cock and balls” on his guitar suggest they aspire to punk acceptance, but while they’re bashing out torrents of trite teen-romance emo pop (Money, Outer Space, Good Girls, basically the whole set) it’s unlikely. Hey Everybody! rips off Hungry Like the Wolf so shamelessly that Duran Duran have writing credits. Amnesia, with its Frank Turner folk verse and X Factor chorus, is instantly forgettable. “Stop loving me to death,” sings Clifford with the desperate authenticity of an emo Ken doll. 5SOS think they’re a pupal Green Day; in fact they’re a slightly more angst-ridden Mr Tumble.
To their credit, At the Hop remake She’s Kinda Hot is kinda catchy, frontman Luke Hemmings has a knowing charisma and their audience connection is undeniable. When the crowd raise personalised confessional signs during Jet Black Heart – “I am an emotional eater”, “I am a survivor” – you feel you should hold up a sheet reading: “I am a cynical middle-aged Guardian critic; this isn’t aimed at me.” But like McBusted before them, 5SOS exist to turn rock-inclined teens into good, pliable little consumers, a gateway drug to the hard stuff of Bastille. “We’re the voice of the new generation,” they sing on Permanent Vacation. God help us.
- At First Direct Arena, Leeds, on 11 April. Box office: 0844-248 1585. Then touring.
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