Tag Archives: Backstreet Boys

Middle-Aged Men on the Block

1 Jan

January 1, 2011

Well I had planned to take the day off, but did you see this last night?

90’s pop jokes New Kids on the Block teamed up with another washed up has-been group, The Backstreet Boys, to form the alphabet-insulting “super group” NKONTBSB.

It was sad. Some of those “kids” and “boys” are over 40, and it shows. Watch the video below and marvel at how laughable some of the “dance moves” are. Obviously, a couple of those children are not as mobile as they used to be. I am sure at one point they were doing the same shuffling moves Popeye used to do in the old Kings Features Syndicate cartoons. Plenty of downtime was built into the routine too. While one group was performing, the other simply stood in the back, resting. After all, they have to be careful- a couple of those guys are in danger of breaking a hip.

Despite the crowd going nuts (and if you had been standing in Times Square for ten hours you’d be going nuts too) they really embarrassed themselves. The songs have not held up. Disposable teen pop is, by definition, disposable. Although any attempt to recycle it rides a very small wave of nostalgia, watching it performed by mature older men dressed in conservative suits was too much. It was all very sad.

They came across as their own tribute band in a 90’s revue.

Nine old men shuffling around the stage trying to recapture the glory of their youth. Sure, they are around 40, not 80, but if you can’t stand Justin Beiber now just wait and see how you feel when he makes a comeback after his hair thins and he does a prostate PSA.

Here it is, watch and see for yourself.

But not me. Seeing it once was enough.

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SQUEEE! New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys to Tour Together!

12 Nov

November 12, 2010

OMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD! IT! IS! HAPPENING! The New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys are going to tour together! SQUEEEE!

This goes in my glitter-covered scrapbook!

Jeez. This is like the coming together of some kind of pop-culture nexus that is going to attract a lot of divorced 30-40 year old housewives, and that can’t be good. Thank God N-SYNC isn’t a part of this or the world might collapse into a bad music black hole.

OK, look, these “kids” and “boys” are all older than 30 and three of them are over 40. To put that in perspective, the Simpsons has been on the air for 22 years, and Gunsmoke, the former longest running show, was on the air for 20 years, so Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness, who died in 1994) and Monty Burns have more right to be called “kids” and “boys” than these geriatric adolescents.

To tell the truth, I always thought these bands were all just the same guys over and over anyway. It seems like they just cloned some random kid with goofy a hair style and funny facial hair to fill out all those boy bands. Now they all have thinning hair and worry about their prostates.

If you are like me, this news doesn’t come as a shock. In fact, it doesn’t come as anything at all since I didn’t care back when they were big and I don’t care now that some of them are working in a car wash. Were Led Zeppelin touring with AC/DC I’d care. I’d care so much that, the Hell with writing this blog, I’m standing on line for tickets three weeks early.

I was however, curious about Kevin Richardson, whom the article pointedly says won’t be part of the tour. I looked him up on Wikipedia (their motto- “Sometimes we get one right.”) and found this in the entry:

In June 2006, Richardson left the Backstreet Boys to pursue other interests and “move on with the next chapter of [his] life.”

The group has not ruled out a return for the singer.

I’m guessing it has now been ruled out.

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