The ABC promotional juggernaut continues. After their stint on the network's famed soap All My Children and a couple MTV-sponsored appearances on its stupid shows, the O-Town boys get a gig on a live national broadcast. The band will sing its first single, "Liquid Dreams." Fifty-one beautiful women, either dressed to the nines or half-naked in swimsuits, will strut around the stage and be ogled by Donny Osmond. What better venue for the debut of O-Town's homage to ejaculation? They also craftily let O-Town sing before the talent competition, thus elevating the five finalists' performances by juxtaposing them with complete mediocrity. And in a neat twist, the Miss America group lets Jackie Salvucci contend for "Miss Congeniality."
Marie Osmond introduces O-Town and, naturally, mentions their "hit" television series. Actually, Marie said "shit" television series, but the network censors anticipated her truth-telling and deftly muted the extra letter.
The fivesome strut onstage in darkness. Smartly, they left the crew lock where it belongs -- languishing in a junk heap with the Macarena, the Locomotion, and the Electric Slide. Ashley emerges in the center of the pack and gets the first line, again dressed in light colors -- pale blue and a denim jacket -- that make him glow like an ethereal innocent. Just once, I wish he'd come out with a cigarette between his lips, a "My Crotch is for Carnivores" t-shirt, and a hot-pink thong hanging between his front teeth. "Posters of love are surrounding me," he sings, and although he means wall decorations, I prefer interpreting it as a shout-out to the many forum dwellers eager to lick a milk mustache off his upper lip. "I'm lost in a world of fantasy." Okay. Then Trevor appears, clad in a sleeveless shirt and khakis, with a flesh-toned skull cap. In honoring wet dreams, the costume department thought it apropos to have one O-Boy come out disguised as a phallus. And thus, Trevor's outfit was born. "Every night she comes to me and gives me all the love I need," he sings. Trevor got a solo! I'm almost proud. He's not terrible, either, except that he's channeling Justin Timberlake by pronouncing "me" like "may." Because of his muscles, I shall forgive him. So far, so good.
And then, Jacob has to show up and ruin things with his solo. His reddish-brown hair is dreadlocked and tightly woven to his skull, and fastened with a red bandanna for good measure. He's what they call in the biz, "horrible." The nasality isn't gone from his voice, and he sounds out-of-breath and flat. His microphone is too loud as well, which only enhances those negatives. At home, all the rejected finalists are gobsmacked that this runt ever made the cut. "Now this...HOT girl, she's not your average girl. She's a morph-erotic dream from a magazine," Jacob bellows. "And she's...SO fine, designed to blow your mind. She's a dominatrix supermodel beauty queen." Oh, I could totally see Jacob craving a dominatrix. He'd demand that she be the leader, take charge, and at times abruptly walk out of the room mid-hand-job to take a stroll outside. She'd then return and spank him while yelling that he's a naughty little five-year-old.
The chorus comes up:
I dream about a girl
Who's a mix of Destiny's Child,
Just a little touch of Madonna's wild style
With Janet Jackson's smile.
Throw in a body like Jennifer's,
And you've got the star of my liquid dreams.
That's it. A pop-culture handbook. Afterward, Ashley calls Shelli to say, "It's okay, honey, you're cute too," and a watching Ikaika admits he quit the band because Malia read the lyrics and insisted it would be infidelity.
Erik's up , and he delivers what I've decided is a huge shout-out to Mighty Big TV. He sings, "With Angelina Jolie's lips to kiss in the dark, underneath Cindy C's beauty mark." Erik the Mouth fantasizes about the only woman whose lip size rivals his own! This is perfect. Can you imagine that kiss? It'd be like two crazed, wet couch cushions trying to swallow each other. Erik's voice isn't great -- very shaky and shrill. "When it comes to the test, Tyra's the best," Dan sings. "And Salma Hayek brings the rest." Wow. Tyra, Madonna, Cindy Crawford, Janet -- these guys are equal-opportunity horndogs. But gee, isn't this song a tiny bit superficial? Is this a good message to send to young, impressionable children with image problems? "Looks ain't everything -- she's got the sweetest personality, like Halle B," Dan sings. I'm so glad to hear that. Halle Berry is a total sweetheart, too -- take, for example, her enormous breasts and flat stomach. They are the nicest, smartest, and most selfless boobs and abs I've ever met. ["Not to mention how she so sweetly pulled a hit-and-run." -- niki] The last verse goes, "My mama thinks I'm lazy [because she can't get me out of the bathroom], my friends all think I'm crazy [for talking about this in public], but in my mind, I leave the world behind [heh, I just said 'behind']." Jacob gets the solo nod again with the "now this HOT girl..." line. He looks kinda flushed -- I think he's still giddy from sneaking into the dressing room and putting itching powder in Miss Hawaii's evening gown. "Contiguous states 1, Pineapples 0," he thinks evilly.
Then, the guys slow things up a bit and do a "liquid dreams" slow-motion walk of some kind, saying, "Waterfalls and streams, these liquid dreams." Ugh. Raymond said it best: "Hello! Someone has to say, 'That SUCKS!'" Except judging by the mass defections from Trans Con since O-Town was formed, Raymond likely won't be the one saying this to the guys again.
The chorus repeats until the song ends. There's lots of ass wiggling and groin thrusting, and on the "star of my liquid dreams" line, they rub themselves from nape to nether region and hunch over to rest their heads on their hands, miming sleep. That's as classy as the song itself. O-Town struts around the stage doing random jumps and spins. Jacob continues to try and sound like Michael Jackson -- this isn't the "Baby, I Would" Jacob, but the vaguely threatening one from Tony Harrison's recording studio, who made me fear for my life. Trevor works the camera, while Erik's gold chain flaps against his shirt. Dan gets to grandstand -- lots of solo lines and harmony deviations for him. The song ends a cappella, and Erik rushes off to change into his flowered evening gown and sing "I Feel Pretty" to himself in the mirror.
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No evidence of vocal coaching or training has shown itself. Nobody improved, with the possible exception of Trevor, and they all sound out of breath and terribly strained during the live performance. Erik stretched so hard to hit some high notes that he gave me a migraine -- and that was when I had him on "mute." Jacob, to me, sank from the self-christened Star of the Band to one of the dregs, while Ashley didn't get showcased at all, probably because he's the one who least needs to impress the fans. From start to finish, the performance felt more like Star Search than something musically significant from a band about to release its first album. During the chorus, the microphones were set at funky unbalanced levels so the wrong parts of the harmonies were emphasized. Dan sounded okay, but they're still trying to fuse Erik and Dan's two voices into one Ikaika. O-Town seems to think that, when all else fails, touch yourself and gyrate. On many levels that might be true, but it won't help them here, unfortunately.
Incidentally, Miss Hawaii won. And after hearing this song, I think Ikaika won, too.
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