{"id":101811,"date":"2016-08-22T19:02:12","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T23:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=101811"},"modified":"2016-08-23T12:24:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T16:24:19","slug":"lou-and-his-dream-making-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/22\/lou-and-his-dream-making-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Lou and His Dream-making Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Pearlman, center, with the finalists from O-Town.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lou Pearlman, the slippery impresario behind the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, O-Town, LFO, Aaron Carter, and about a half dozen other agreeably vacuous late nineties pop acts, has died in prison. Yes, the<\/em> Lou Pearlman. The guy practically invented boy bands. I mean, he didn\u2019t\u2014he just ripped off New Kids on the Block\u2014but he invented the most lucrative<\/em> boy bands, and as he\u2019d be the first to tell you, that\u2019s the more major achievement. You couldn\u2019t turn around in 1999 without seeing one of his acts: massively telegenic, deeply ordinary, somehow memorable. They had branded lip balms, bobbleheads, and throw pillows for sale. I know this because I spent a lot of time hating them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My\u00a0animus was an adolescent male prerequisite. I hated the Backstreet Boys because I was twelve, *NSYNC because I was thirteen, and Aaron Carter because I was fourteen and he was related to a Backstreet Boy. Of course, true hatred, the kind that really grips the pubescent soul, takes a lot of effort. To hate a boy band was to know all the words to their songs; was to know their members by name and maybe even by star sign; was to be fluent in their discography, videography, and choreography. In other words: hating the Backstreet Boys meant learning more about them than about many things I love. I remember watching an animated spoof called \u201cWhich Backstreet Boy Is Gay?<\/a>\u201d set to the tune of \u201cI Want It That Way,\u201d and thinking, Man, it sounds just like the real song! (In case you were wondering: by the end of the parody, they\u2019re all <\/em>gay.)<\/p>\n

These were strange times to come of age musically. Nu-metal had traction on the charts. MiniDiscs were a viable commercial format. And Pearlman, a blimp obsessive and penny-stock investor, was the biggest pop kingmaker in America. Watching his reality\/talent show Making the Band<\/em>\u2014as I had to, because I hated the band\u2014I remember being struck, even then, by the irony that this crass, corpulent guy was commanding an army of sculpted, conventionally attractive young men. Guys with bleached tips, Oakleys, skate shoes, and hemp necklaces\u2014guys who could be cool<\/em>, were they not inclined to sing\u2014were enthralled by this total slob just because he had demonstrated some capacity to make them famous. They revered Lou\u2014at first, anyway. In one episode of Making the Band<\/em>, a member of O-Town\u2014a group named after Orlando even though none of its members came from there\u2014tells the camera, \u201cLou looks at us, like, as sons. Because Lou thinks so positively, he just makes things happen. It\u2019s just like magic, like, everything seems to fall in place whenever you\u2019re around Lou. And I think that\u2019s just because of his attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, when nearly all his acts had sued him for exploiting them and accusations of molestation had begun to surface, it would occur to me to question this \u201cattitude,\u201d but in the moment I took it at face value. Even though he was ugly and his bands pretty, and even though his brand of entrepreneurship required treating pop music as an assembly line, I would not have described him as cynical. And that was his real coup. Any old mogul can apply the logic of the factory to art\u00a0production. Any slimeball mogul can put on a nationwide talent show, hire a few good-looking faces,\u00a0and\u00a0churn out some middling hits.\u00a0It takes some skill, though, to put together\u00a0bands using the most\u00a0conniving and inimical methods at your disposal\u00a0while convincing most of your target audience that you\u2019re basically a stand-up guy. Look at the way Pearlman conducts himself in this clip from\u00a0Making the Band<\/em>, where he\u2019s tasked with eliminating two performers from O-Town\u2019s lineup. He\u2019s like a coach, an uncle, a vice principal, and a\u00a0pastor all rolled into one\u2014a cuddly, catchall authority figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n