Confession Time

Let's get real here, for a quick second. Boy bands were awesome. At the time, it seemed like five dudes with bleached blonde hair doing synchronized dance moves with those hands free mics was the antithesis to everything my punk rock heart adored. Looking back, there is no greater symbolism of the 90's than those dance moves. You may not have been able to swing those headset mics, but it didn't stop these boys from swinging straight into my heart.

            Personally, I always thought the Backstreet Boys were a little overrated and a little too formulaic. They took the New Kids On the Block thing and basically just did the same personality profiles with different guys who would later have serious alcohol problems and/or get super stoked on His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Plus that one dude had a bowl cut, and there has literally never been one time in the history of man that that was OK. AJ was pretty cool because he had really edgy piercings and tribal tattoos, which indicated that he was the most hard living member. He also rarely took off his sunglasses, which made it look like he always had a lot on his mind (World peace? The next election? Last night's stripper?). Furthermore, one time Brian Littrell lost his dog and offered an insane sum of money for its safe return. The dog was eventually found, right before Nick Carter got his 87^th DUI.

            N'Sync was pretty cool, but not all of them were good looking. Obviously, Justin Timberlake has always been drool-worthy, even when he had cornrows and wore those weird shell necklaces from Abercrombie. The one that bothers me out of this group is Chris Kirkpatrick, who always seemed to be the worst dancer and singer and the least attractive/most likely to lose his hair at an early age. The thing that bothered me the most about Kirkpatrick, though, was his tendency to wear Adidas visors upside down, backwards or cocked at an angle. Unacceptable. In my mind, N'Sync probably had the greatest cultural impact of the two boy band powerhouses, mostly because of Timberlake's ability to carry his success through beyond the band, and for Lance Bass being smart enough to wait to announce he was gay until only one woman in America not from the Deep South still had a crush on him. Clay Aiken.

            Neither of these groups were my favorite, though. 98 Degrees was cool, but they had way too many sweeping-arm-motions-on-a-beach power ballads for the girls and not enough hot, sticky dance jams. O-Town was pretty cool, but once I saw them live and they were totally lip synching. There was a band called MyTown or something who were Irish (maybe?) and they had some of the necessary skill set, but Euros always tend to get American pop culture trends just a little wrong when they try to do it too big (See: Any NBA player from Romania) and they tried to incorporate live instrumentation, which was just unacceptable to me. I don't want to hear you play acoustic guitar boy band man, just make me melt with your eyes. 5ive could have been super dope, but they didn't have enough hair product and they were British. The heading of the last paragraph on their Wikipedia page is "2006-07: Failed Comeback." Ouch. That's what you get for having a kind of pudgy dude with an eyebrow ring for your leader.

            No, my heart belongs to another band, and that band is LFO. I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon because God done took Rich Cronin from us way too early, either. If you know me you know how I get down with my LFO cassette collection.

            Of course, everyone knows "Summer Girls," and it makes sense that song is the one that has lasted. It's the perfect summer party tune. The beat is sick, the hook is nasty and the lyrics! Obviously we all know the words, but none of us are even remotely capable of adding the bits of flavor Rich threw on lines like "I like the color purple, macaroni and cheese." The way he says "cheese" gives me goosebumps every time, and those lyrics are relatable! If you don't like either of those two items, you can go live in Russia, where purple and pasta are both banned. Enjoy it.

             That first album had a bunch of good singles. Also notable is "Girl on TV," about having a crush on a girl from a TV show so bad you just want to kidnap her and take her away from the evils of Hollywood, and whisk her away to your suburban bedroom in your parents' house, where she'll be safe for all time. I shed many a tear to this song as a young man. Some people in my old hometown say that the ghost of my 8 year old body haunts the house I grew up in, and if you walk by at the right time of night, you can hear someone scream "God, if you can hear me, let Rich Cronin date that actress! Why are you preventing him from being with his one true love, who may or may not be Jennifer Love Hewitt?! WHYYYY!?!?" Spooky, huh?

            To get back on track, the rapping in "West Side Story" is unparalleled by any other human tongue. I still have no idea what he's saying, and I'm still trying to figure it out. LFO's second album was super boss as well, although it didn't get the media attention that songs like "6 Minutes" and "Every Other Time" deserved. It seemed, at that time, that the world had moved on. Rich and those two other dudes had crafted a pop masterpiece, and everyone was too busy with that guy Macy Gray. He sucks. Oh well, I'll keep my memories of LFO's glory days close to my chest. Sometimes, at night, when it's just me and a bottle of vodka, I pretend that Rich is still alive. I pretend he's here with me, and that he can give me guidance. He sits on my shoulder (he's miniature, like a small genie), looking like he did in the "Summer Girls" video, and he helps me figure out how to live my life. I have him to thank for all my great successes, and when we ride off into the sunset together, you will all be green with envy. In the meantime, get at me on AOL Instant Messenger and let's party to some old boy band tunes.