Benjamin Franklin would be appalled, courtesy of flickr user daughter of terror

Gawker writer Richard Lawson declares today Tokio Hotel Day only half-ironically, calling the German pop sensation an object of his simultaneous "hatred and morbid obsession." Boy bands have always been cash cows (this one has made millions for Universal Germany), honing in laser-like on the prepubescent desires of teenage girls and their allowances. But Tokio Hotel is just a little different. They don't seem to be from any place in particular, save perhaps outer space; certainly not Germany. And they don't quite follow the formula of committee-assembled characters that any girl can choose to be her very own (I like the skater! I like the sensitive one!). No, this made-in-Magdeburg group is really just about one guy: frontman Bill Kaulitz, a unisex youth with a streaked manga mane and, one presumes, all kinds of great make-up tips.

Compared sometimes in appearance to Sonic the Hedgehog, his massive Pied Piper appeal with junior high girls is unfathomable to parents and older brothers alike, but NYT's Kelefa Sanneh, who saw last night's show at Irving Plaza, might have pegged it: "he is an intermediate figure, standing between the girls in the crowd and the men in the band." Like a manga character, he's cute, exotic, non-threatening and a potential best friend.

The band released an English version of single "Tokio Hotel" late last year and are planning a fully translated US album "Scream" (from "Schrei") for April. If they have any measure of stateside success (their UK bid flopped), it will have everything to do with the cult of spectacle and not as much with their mastery of spoken English, to which this interpreted interview video with the New York Post can attest. But they'll probably pick it up as they go. Kids are smart like that.