In the late 90s and early aughts, a guy in his late teens or early twenties couldn't venture out alone without fear of being kidnapped, dipped in hair gel, and somehow contracted to perform in a boy band. It was a time when every song on the radio was addressed to an unnamed "Girl," and synchronized choreographed stage-humping constituted a great performance. The man largely responsible for this was human stay-puff marshmallow man, Lou Pearlman, who managed Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC, LFO, Take 5, and a bunch of other things you'd rather forget.
Nowadays, Pearlman is serving 25 years in jail, not for the Orlandoification of pop music, but for several counts of fraud. However, he's not going to let a little thing like prison come between him and the next O-Town.
From The Daily News:
The portly man who brought you the Backstreet Boys, 'Nsync and O-Town was convicted in May of bilking investors in sham companies out of nearly $500 million. But, despite his current location in a Florida prison, Pearlman has been promoting a group called Biteboy.
Biteboy? Good one, Lou Pearlman. Why not just call them Our Manager's Creepy (OM'sC)? Or maybe Aura Abs, or Icky-Backrub-Town:
According to Tyler Gray's explosive new book "The Hit Charade," some of Pearlman's former charges talked about him giving "creepy" massages and rubbing their abs to align their "auras."
Tim Christofore was 13 when he joined the Pearlman-guided band Take 5. During sleepovers at Pearlman's place, Christofore told Gray, "[Lou] would let us watch porn." Once, Christofore said, he awoke to find Lou standing at the foot of the bed, wearing only a towel, which came off when he dove on the mattress to "wrestle" with the boys.
"Tim is making up this story," Pearlman told Gray. "Besides, I've never owned a towel that could wrap all the way around me."
So Pearlman's defense is, "This is a lie. But, seriously, towels are really difficult." I would have gone with, "What's a mattress?" or "Ask my high school gym coach: I don't know how to wrestle."
New boy band name: LPTMSSA (Lou Pearlman Touched Me In My Swimsuit Area).
Still, we must give credit where credit is due. Lou Pearlman may be a thoroughly creepy successful-boy-band-manager-turned-criminal-turned- manager-of-criminally-named-boy-band, but he is also the mastermind behind what I consider to be the most hilarious song about nocturnal emissions ever: O-Town's "Liquid Dreams."
(Beware: Once you click play on the video below, you can't un-hear this terrible, terrible song.)
[youtube:U-Osm0py5ms]
For that dance move where the hand grazes along the body, down to the crotch, and comes to rest underneath the head in a sleeping pose alone, Lou Pearlman deserves to be in jail.