The girls of "Popstars" take on the O-Town boys from "Making the Band"
Katie Malmquist
Scene Writer
In an age of pop super-stardom and reality-based TV, network television's recent attempts to cash in on both phenomena should not come as a surprise.
ABC's "Making the Band," whose first season kicked off last spring, and the WB's "Popstars," which premiered Jan. 12, take full advantage of these two pop-culture fascinations. Both shows combine teeny bopper obsession with a growing interest in reality television shows to produce what has thus far proved to be a marketing paradise.
Picture Britney Spears goes to "Survivor" Island — or better yet, "Temptation Island" — complete with broken nails, broken hearts, and lots of conflict juicy enough for prime time television.
Of course, the American market for this kind of synthesis is not as young as many think.
Made-for-TV bands like the Monkees have been around since the 1960's, and MTV's "Real World" series launched the reality trend nearly ten years ago.
With the recent success of O-Town, the five man group created for the series "Making the Band," the possibility of reaching Monkee-Mania heights could be a reality — a scary one for groups like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC who spend a great deal of time contesting accusations of this exact kind of "boy-band" manufacturing.
Luckily for the boys of O-Town, America's teen pop audience doesn't seem to mind as much as the critics.
In fact, the boys' pretty faces have landed them multiple appearances on MTV's "Total Request Live," not to mention copious air time for their latest single, "Liquid Dreams," the title track off their debut album.
But the road to stardom is a bumpy one, and in this case, each twist and turn was broadcast over national television for an audience as hungry for the real experience of pop music (if only seen once a week through their TV screens) as they are for the poster boys it produces.
In fact, ABC saw high enough ratings for "Making the Band," which aired for 22 episodes in its first season, that the network has already placed an order for 13 more to run next season.
Headed by Trans Continental Record executive Lou Pearlman, the unctuous force responsible for discovering groups like *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and LFO, "Making the Band" chronicled the grooming of nearly a thousand hopefuls from which five talents were ultimately chosen for the quintet of O-Town.
Of the many who auditioned, 25 were flown to Orlando, FL (the city from which the group borrows its title) where eight were selected to be trained in the art of super-stardom.
The majority of the series exploited the various sacrifices, heartaches and joys they experienced during the final selection process. Perhaps the most dramatic storyline was the plight of the ever-problematic neglected girlfriends (but teen heartthrobs aren't supposed to have girlfriends anyway, are they?).
In the end, we have O-Town: Jacob Underwood, Trevor Penick, Dan Miller, Erik-Michael Estrada, and Ashley Angel — five guys who smile arguably better than they sing.
They are not the first guinea pigs of music industry mass production, and in light of the WB's latest series, "Popstars," it is quite clear that they won't be the last.
Besides crossing the gender line drawn by "Making the Band" and losing the creepy presence of Pearlman, "Popstars" is excruciatingly similar to the ABC series. Even their final product, an all-girl quintet comparable to Destiny's Child or Dream, promises to be O-Town's female shadow.
Basing the show on an Australian series by the same name, the producers of "Popstars" are banking that their female ensemble will be as big in America as it was overseas, where the resulting group, Bardot, scored a number one hit single and album.
With the American premiere, which aired during network prime time Jan. 12 and drew some of the WB's highest ratings to date for that time slot, the future of "Popstars'" 13 week run (currently airing Fridays at 8:30 p.m.) certainly looks as bright as the stars it promises to create.
Like "Making the Band," "Popstars" chronicles a nationwide talent search with stops in Atlanta, Miami, New York, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. Those auditioning must be 18 years or older and must perform one of five selected songs a cappella.
This straegy makes it easier for the judges (a record executive, a group manager and a choreographer) but becomes slightly redundant for the viewers, who may get tired of hearing Whitney Houston-esque renditions of "I Will Always Love You" from six different girls in strikingly similar halter tops and glitter eye-shadow.
In the end, again in O-Town fashion, five lucky girls will get their break, moving to a posh house in L.A. where they will rehearse and record a debut album before launching a national tour, following all the rules of pop along the way — abundant merchandising, lots of glitter and a visit or two to MTV studios for appearances on "TRL," today's ultimate pop music meter.
But will all this careful marketing be enough to launch the girls of "Popstars" and O-Town into the realm of celebrity musicians like Britney Spears and *NSYNC, who have set standards for record and touring sales over the past year?
Most think (or hope) not — mainly because of the inevitable backlash against this kind of mass production of pop groups and what it means to those who genuinely struggle for authenticity and originality in the music business.
The continual growth of America's pop market and the recent overseas popularity of groups like Bardot give O-Town and their female counterparts hope. After all, the likes of Backstreet and *NSYNC hit it big overseas before even being introduced in the US, a promising trend for producers who aim to create that kind of star power.
Still the question remains, are television producers capable this type of magic trick? Only time, record sales and Billboard reports will tell.
All Scene Stories for Wednesday, January 24, 2001
