There’s basically nothing in the world I love more than groups of three to five harmlessly attractive boys singing and doing rehearsed choreography.
10/28 2010
11/14 2010
I can not believe I remember this, but re: Jacob as bad boy, when he’d first gone to auditions like that he almost got cut. She he cut his hair into the most Timberlakey style he could for round 2, waited until he got cast, and then grew his white boy dreads back out.
I remember that, but not my sister’s cellphone number. Thanks a lot, teevee.
I’m sick at work, and I should be watching a 25-year-old, mostly-in-Spanish film about Mexican narcocorridos, so of course I’m having thoughts about O-Town’s really actually disgusting “Liquid Dreams” video, circa 2001.
- I remember seeing this as a tween (and a fairly loyal Making the Band viewer) and not having the faintest idea what nocturnal ejaculation was, but still having the vague notion that “dominatrix” was a bad word somehow.
- These lyrics read as a who’s-who of generic (and mostly “ethnic,” interestingly) hot chicks from 10 years ago: Destiny’s Child, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Angelina Jolie, Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks, Salma Hayek, Halle Berry, and a repeatedly-referenced “Jennifer” who’s probably of the Lopez variety, though it could conceivably also be Aniston or Love Hewitt. I’m kind of surprised that this list is still about 40% relevant, but I guess if you were attractive in 2001, it stands to reason that your boobs are still nice or whatever.
- Seeing Jacob - the white kid with dreads - wearing a bandana and black wifebeater and weirdly mugging for the camera makes me think of the Big Time Rush episode “Big Time Bad Boy,” mostly in the sense that he seems to have been shoe-horned into the role simply due to the conventional wisdom that every boy band needs a bad boy. But Jacob’s so awkward at it that I get the impression that he lost a coin toss or something.
- Speaking of Big Time Rush - they so closely follow established boy band rules from the vantage point of 2010 that it’s actually kind of useful to use them as a lens for videos like these. “Liquid Dreams” wasn’t a hit, and a lot of that is probably due to the fact that it’s gross, but I think it’s also missing a crucial component of many boy band songs - the “you” factor. Every song on BTR that’s about a girl is in the second person in order to shamelessly pander to the impressionable tween listener; I would say the most egregious are “Boyfriend” (“You’re looking for a boyfriend/ I see that/ Give me time/ You know I’m gonna be that”) and “Any Kind of Guy” (“Any kind of guy you want, girl /That’s the guy I’ll be”). (Big Time Rush also never shies away from calling the listener “girl,” another time-tested boy band tradition.) But “Liquid Dreams” is about a girl that’s not only a perfect amalgam (or, as the song detestably puts it, “morph-erotic”) of the hottest famous women of the day but also imaginary. In the bridge, the guy who I think is Dan sings, “My friends all think I’m crazy /But in my mind/ I leave the world behind” - she is totally made up and he knows it, but she’s the only girl he’ll ever love. For a 12 year-old girl, that’s an impossible bar to clear in terms of one day marrying Ashley Parker Angel. A big part of the boy band appeal is the wish fulfillment, and a big part of this song’s strangeness is that it’s more concerned with the guys’ wishes than the girl’s.
- Another noted thing about Big Time Rush’s technique is choreography that’s way too interpretive of the lyrics, to the point of silliness (e.g. “Til I Forget About You”). “Liquid Dreams,” unfortunately, indulges in this, and the unfortunate combination of the masturbatory hand motion/body roll for “liquid” and the hands-cradling-head pose for “dreams” is better left unanalyzed, probably.
- It almost goes without saying that this “dominatrix supermodel beauty queen’s” perfection stems entirely from physical attractiveness - because duh, what else is important? - but I appreciate Lou Perlman’s effort to subvert this two full minutes into the song, when the bridge begins, “Looks ain’t everything /She’s got the sweetest personality /Like Halle B.”
I don’t think anyone wishes that this song did for O-Town what “Bye Bye Bye” did for ‘Nsync. And I’m pretty sure no one wishes that it was Ashley Parker Angel hosting SNL and starring in David Fincher movies instead of Justin Timberlake. But at least you’ll always have that song about ejaculating - right, guys?
01/10 2011
My, my, look how we roll
GET IN LOSER, WE’RE GOING SHOPPING.
(Source: , via allaboutbtr-deactivated20110926)
01/14 2011
LOL! Logan.
Why would they be using umbrellas in these outfits?
The arms tho.
d’awwww Carlos looks so lost
but omg :3
baby you can stand under my umbrellllllllaaa
Logan’s arms ♥_♥
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