ProTools all the way! Hey, hey, hey!

All hail the sugar-rush of mindless bubblepunk! Sounding exactly as you’d expect for an Australian Idol also-ran whose auditions weren’t so much marked by Good Charlotte covers as they were scrawled with fluorescent felt-tips to match his pink-streaked mullet (the likes of which hadn’t been witnessed since Kelly Osborne’s first forays into fugly consciousness), Lee Harding’s “Wasabi”ensures you’ll fall helpless at the altar of teenpop celebration, giving thanks to the Sum 41’s, Bowling for Soup’s and Something Corporate’s of the world that made this crazy child a reality (and my word, I never thought such a thing were possible).

See, despite the lack of any obvious substance, somehow Wasabi’s negative imprint strikes you down with the very wholehearted dedication to vapid, lowest-common-denominator Protooling that should see it banished to the BEP circle of the inferno. And when I say strike, I mean the kind of cartoon BAM! that leaves you reeling in a circle of fluffy tweeting chicklets, eyes dangling uselessly to your elbows and tongue halfway to the floor. It isn’t just an obnoxious, production-perfect bastardization of punkrock riffs and crescendo drum-crash, it’s a song dedicated to being the best damn bastardization of punkrock riffs and crescendo drum-crash you’ve guiltily set to repeat play this year.

This is where Skye Sweetnam’s “Hypocrite” comes flouncing in, dripping with tantrums, tears and detention. Taking Lee’s BAM! and raising him a KAPOW!, Skye delivers not merely thrumming, head-toss teen angst, but thrumming, head-toss teen angst with cheerleader yells. That drum loop! The drilling electro chords! Those neon mascara wink lyrics!

Because when it comes to bratpop endeavours, I give credit to the kids who step up and commit. No lurking on the fringe, hoping for credibility or authenticity gold stars. No ironic nods and half-assed sample winks, it’s all or nothing in the petulance stakes if you’re going to reach the requisite levels of joyful self-absorption to make me leap around like the fifteen year-old I never was.

(Click here to buy Sweetnam’s record, and here to buy the Lee Harding album, both from Amazon.)