I’m not all that picky about choosing which Netflix documentary to watch. I think most of them are pretty good and some are outstanding, so when you give me a Netflix documentary about a pivotal time in my life (the boyband craze of the early 2000s) I’m going to add it to my list. After three hours of Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam, I’m wondering if I needed this one at all?
The general story arc without spoilers or going into too much detail: Lou Perlman started leasing airplanes in the 80s and one of his clients was New Kids On the Block. He saw the pandemonium around them and realized tons of screaming teenage girls were an untapped source of riches, and he decided to recreate the formula. He hit it big on his first try with the Backstreet Boys and then he did it again with NSYNC, because if something is popular, there will be duplicates to compete — why not create the competition himself and reap double the benefits? Meanwhile, he was running an insurance scam that was basically a huge ponzi scheme, and he was using his bands (none as big as the first two, but still lots of artists) to keep investors interested in pumping more cash into his fraudulent endeavors. Eventually the scheme caught up to him and he was sent to federal prison.
I knew all of this already. Lance Bass already produced a documentary on Lou Perlman in 2019 and it’s still streaming on YouTube if you want to see it. What I liked about the Netflix version were all of the interviews with other people in Lou’s orbit who weren’t directly connected to the music. We get his childhood best friend, his secretary, and his fake girlfriend that he paraded around to cover up the fact that he was sexually abusing some of those teen boys. Or was he?
All this time I had been convinced that Lou Perlman was a predator. Aaron Carter even sued him at one point. But in this documentary, every single person either outright defends him or says they never witnessed anything with their own eyes. Even without confirmation, we still get the same details that we’ve always known: he let the some of the boys stay in his house, he had porn for them, and he was very affectionate. If it walks like a duck…
Netflix also dug further into the repercussion of his scams on normal people. Some of the victims lost all their life savings and there’s a mysterious death wrapped up in those threads that no one can come to a consensus about. We also get an anecdote from the days following 9/11 where air travel was completely grounded and Lou was able to get a private jet off the ground, showing how much power there really was in being a teen pop impresario.
A lot of it is very interesting, and I think I would have been leaning toward a higher score if not for the fact that Netflix decided to use an AI generated image of Lou Perlman reading passages out of his autobiography. In case you weren’t aware, Lou Perlman has been dead for eight years, and even though he is the bad guy in this story, it feels incredibly immoral to use the image of a dead man to essentially vilify himself from the grave. We could have gotten those same damning passages from his autobiography into this documentary with a voiceover. It feels gross every time he comes on screen, not just because the criminal himself is describing his misdeeds, but because this is a person who can’t even consent to it.
It’s not a must-watch. If you’re really invested in the era, there are some interesting tidbits of information to learn over the course of those three episodes, but again — do we need it? The artists he stole from have made peace with it. AJ in particular said Backstreet Boys wouldn’t exist without Lou, which is absolutely correct. He would not be a superstar still making millions of dollars on tour. So it’s up to you. I can still listen to the music (from Orlando of all places) without much conflict, so I collected some of the best for y’all.
Musical Mondays: Lou Perlman
Backstreet Boys “All I Have To Give”
Howie was so fine to me, and the fact that he had to take a backseat to Brian of all people just worked my nerves. Full Force wrote this song for the group and they specifically asked Howie to sing lead during the second verse because they thought he was being slept on. I agree.
Smilez & Southstar “Tell Me”
Here’s a song you probably forgot you knew! (I sure did.) After a million pop bands, Lou started branching out into country and then hip-hop with this duo. The song was built on an old Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye sample and became one of hip-hops best one-hit wonders in 2002.
Solid Harmonie “I’ll Be There For You”
This was Lou’s first girl group, put together in 1996. And the production sounds like Max Martin just reused a bunch of tricks from NSYNC’s “I Want You Back.”
LFO “Summer Girls”
LFO thought of themselves as bad boys, as the Beastie Boys of pop boybands. I don’t know about all that, but they did have this one good song. Also, the lead singer/rapper was Rich Cronin, whose brother Mike was O-Town’s manager. Keeping it all in the family.
Take 5 “I Give”
A failed attempt to create more competitors for BSB and NSYNC, Take 5 flopped probably because none of the guys had voices that were good enough to anchor the music. But anyone who watched Nashville might recognize one of he members: Tilky Jones was Hayden Panettiere’s love interest on the first season.
Marshall Dyllon “Live It Up”
Kind of upset this is not on streaming! Kenny Rogers started a record label and wanted to recreate the boyband craze in country music. Lou found these guys and honestly the music still hits. They should have been opening for Shania.
NSYNC “For The Girl Who Has Everything”
Whether you are Team NSYNC or Team BSB, I feel like we all have to agree that this song is one of the best ballads to come out of the era. I do encourage you to listen to the original album version where JC sings all of the leads. They re-recorded it for their video collection, In the Mix, and gave Justin the second verse (the best verse!) but he is just not a vocalist. Very annoying how they handed that boy a career just because girls thought he was cute and we are still suffering the repercussions!
Natural “Put Your Arms Around Me”
Natural were together before Lou Perlman. Their original manager put up close to $100K to get them all into music lessons so they could all play instruments. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find a record label willing to sign them, so they ditched their manager, hooked up with Lou, got sued by the first manager, and then released a bunch of albums that went nowhere while one of them lived in Lou’s house for six years. Not suspicious at all.
US5 “Just Because of You”
Lou tried to recreate that international magic with US5 (both BSB and NSYNC had made it big in Germany first). US5 was created on a German competition show called Big in America, but they were only big in Europe. In Germany they had ten Top 20 singles over the course of four albums and some of those songs are really good. This vampire moment was cheesy, but every boyband needed a spooky shirtless moment.
O-Town “Liquid Dreams”
Before Diddy sent his contestants to Brooklyn for cheesecake, Lou Perlman was on ABC with the first season of Making the Band trying to find the next Backstreet Boys. He ended up with O-Town who has only two good songs. Ashley Parker Angel went solo though and he has like four good songs, so that’s six total.
Innosense “Say No More”
This was Lou’s second girl group made up of a few Mickey Mouse girls and a few other entertainment vets. Britney Spears was in this group, but left before recording because going solo felt like a better idea. JC’s ex-girlfriend from the Mickey Mouse Club is in it though — Nikki DeLoach. She went by Peaches and NSYNC has a shout out to her in the liner notes of their first album.
Jordan Knight “Give It to You”
And ending on Jordan Knight feels full circle. Lou got his inspiration to create the Backstreet Boys from New Kids on the Block, and four years after NKOTB broke up, lead singer Jordan signed with Lou to go solo. Written by Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Robin Thicke, this song is classic pop and one of the best examples of a lead singer coming out the gate with a banger on their debut solo outing.
So that should give you a hint toward what next week’s theme will be! October’s playlist is below (some of the songs are missing because they’re not on Spotify) so you can save it for new stuff, or just keep listening to September.
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