Boy Bands: A Retrospective
My buddy Nima posted the video of O-Town’s Liquid Dreams on Facebook today. Dude, it has been years since I last saw that video. You see, back in the day (1999-2001) I was a huuuge boy ban fanatic. I could recite all the Backstreet Boys’ birthdays and the N’Sync members’ favorite colors. (Don’t judge! I was a young gay man going through my adolescent teen girl phase at the time.)
Anyway, I loved Making the Band, the ABC reality show that selected the singers that would eventually make up O-Town. Today, as a more mature and sophisticated (spare me your eye-rolls) gay man, I am amazed at how much of a parody O-Town was of itself. The boy band thing was always pretty ridiculous, but it’s funny how blatant O-Town was. Liquid Dreams?! Come on! The song isn’t even remotely trying to use innuendo to hide the fact that the song is about having wet dreams about hot celebrity women. Hilarious.
Here’s something you may or may not know: MTV totally poked fun at the boy band thing with their own various parodies of the boy band phenomenon. There was the TV movie 2ge+her where they called bullshit on the marketing ploy that was the boy band craze. The movie suggested that there was a simple formula for a successful boy band: You needed five members = The Heartthrob, The Shy One, The Cute One, The Bad Boy, and The Older Brother. The movie was cute, but the songs were pure genius. Check out the absurdity of 2ge+her’s hit U + Me = Us (Calculus).
Also in the movie, there was a quick MTV News parody segment featuring another pho-boy band called Whoa. Their hit song was titled Rub One Out. Take a watch and make sure to listen for the spurt spurt sounds in the background music! (And if you want to hear the song in its entirety, click here. It’s been dubbed over SHINee’s music video.)
In addition to the outright mocking of boy bands in 2ge+her, MTV also produced the movie Josie and the Pussycats. This movie was primarily about how corporations dictate the latest fads through well-oiled marketing machines. I’ll bet most of you never watched the movie and assumed it was drivel. But, trust me on this one: It’s a clever, biting (and ironic?) commentary on the corporatization of the music industry starring Parker Posey and Alan Cumming. Not to be missed! One of my favorite parts of the movie is in the beginning when boy band Du Jour (starring Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, and Donald Faison) performs their hit song Backdoor Lover.
Today I’m waaaay over the boy band infatuation. Now I’ve moved on to much more refined music tastes, like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Don’t Judge!
