The "Miss America" performance was a disaster. The concerts on the television show exposed a haphazardly assembled band of mediocre talents -- certainly not one that merits extensive and expensive national promotion, nor one that seems destined to wear the mantle of outrageous success currently draped on *NSYNC's shoulders. With the album release date as-yet unscheduled and a show on hiatus until as late as March, O-Town needed to generate some buzz beyond the rumblings of Making the Band loyalists.
Then "Liquid Dreams" hit the airwaves, and its video premiered on Total Request Live and in a cushy primetime berth on ABC just after America's Funniest Home Videos. Yes, Funniest Home Videos is an embarrassing carcass of a show rife with forced jokes, canned laughter, and inexplicable idiocy (Hi, Geena Davis? Are you listening?). But it seems very sensible to juxtapose O-Town with a show whose putrescence gives Making the Band episodes the look of a highbrow PBS documentary.
And so, the moment arrives. America's Funniest Home Videos comes to its merciful end, joining 7th Heaven in proving that a show's title doesn't have to be accurate, we then see the O-Town gang hanging out, all Benetton chic, pretending to laugh and play and be merry. Dan has divested himself of usual apparel, opting for something that's neither a vest nor a V-neck. Perhaps it's a shirt stiched together from all that extra underwear he brought with him. Suddenly, Jacob gets serious and faces the camera. Whoa, there -- Jacob has funky-ass dreadlocks. They're long and deep brown. Someone's got just a little bit of TyJuan's wild style. With an annoying smile. Erik's hair is standing on end, which looks considerably frightening given that it's a bit long. He resembles Beaker from The Muppet Show whenever the puppet gets electrocuted. I guess that makes Lou the portly bespectacled scientist giving the orders. Anyway, the gist of it is that O-Town wants us to enjoy the video. Thanks, guys. We will, if you aren't in it and the song isn't playing.
Apropos to the title, "Liquid Dreams" begins with magnified water drops falling onto a hard surface. One of the elongated drops rotates sideways and the producers want us to believe we're staring at the mouth of a tunnel -- but by the look of it, I'm staring into an unrolled condom. I suppose that's appropriate, as both places could involved in some tawdry O-Town liquid dream.
Immediately, as the tunnel rotates and swirls around them, Ashley appears and delivers his two-line solo. Spiky hair: check. Angelic look: check. Everything normal here. Behind him appears the silhouette of a woman, filled in not with black, but with reflective, metallic-silver sheen. She looks like liquid metal. Trevor appears for his bit, standing opposite Liquid Woman and touching his fingers to hers. His shirt says "Bronx" on it in gothic lettering, which is very special for a kid profoundly tied to that borough -- in the sense that he's from California. I don't care. I love Trevor anyway (There! I said it!), and his arm muscles are popping. Can't beat that visual.
Jacob wants to tell us about "this hot girl," who -- rumor has it -- isn't your average girl. Jacob wags his finger and stands there in the tunnel, blatantly wearing bright red pants but not apologizing for it. He stretches out his arms. "Love me, Revlon," he thinks. "I could hawk your nail polish." An image of Erik, in which he stands still, is zoomed from the back of the tunnel right to the front, then disappears. He's clad in a weird brown jacket that looks patched together from the old brown and tan M&Ms. The best, or rather worst part is Erik's hair -- combed forward over his forehead. Stunningly awful. It's follicle abuse. The Beatles' hairdo has been bitch-slapped by Rick Astley and James Van Der Beek, then dumped on Erik's head. It looks like a claw has clasped his noggin, although what that claw hopes to find therein remains a mystery. Erik's gut is the real gem. Before filming started, Erik was staring in a mirror singing, "Turd-pie hair, turd-pie hair, I am wearing turd-pie hair."
Chorus. The five guys, all clad in black, engage in shameless displays of synchronized dance, minus the "synchronized" part. They're close, but not quite there -- wonder how many takes they did. I can just see the director sitting in his chair, dazed, a single tear trickling down a harried face. "Fuck it," the director sobs. "That's fine, print it, get me out of here." The guys dance atop what looks like the lid of a tin can. Insert your own joke here about the contents of the can -- fruit, canned wieners, pineapple, German sausage, and (of course!) artichoke are all acceptable punch lines. One real woman actually pops up on her own can lid and belly dances -- well, no, she dances with her belly. There's a difference. The camera does a close-up on her navel, which turns into a pool of water we then enter. Yeah, I didn't want to go there either, but no one asked.
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The new scene is a similarly wet set. Erik is performing his solo, and one of the Liquid Women is dancing. She bends over and shakes her ass at the camera. This is Liquid Porn. Somewhere, a Liquid Man is watching this bit over and over again and having himself some Liquid Naughty-Time. Erik is wearing huge, rimless, red-tinted sunglasses. It appears Satan and Lara Flynn Boyle have mated and reared the offspring. The guys now dance on a Liquid Floor, with a giant, three-dimensional "O-Town" in block letters adorning the background. You know, in case you had them confused with the local fifth-grade Christmas pageant, or that cockroach you killed this morning in the bathtub. Dan lisps his way through his solos, looking very nice but still not heartthrob material. He's just not invested in this process, if you catch my drift.
A horde of Liquid Women pop up to dance during Dan and Erik's "Salma Hayek brings the rest" line. You know, if this video flops, J Records could delete O-Town from the scene and sell the rest. Take all the gyrating, naked, silhouetted bodies, the general futuristic look, and add a throaty female voice -- think Christina Aguilera after fifteen years of Marlboros -- and this could double for a James Bond movie's credit sequence.
Jacob has a patch of hair on his chin. From afar, it looks like acne. Up close, it looks like...furry acne. He's also holding back the dreds with a variety of bandannas. I swear, TyJuan is his new image consultant, except it doesn't work. TyJuan is the mayor of Sauce Town, but Jacob is the intern who got fired and had to take a job mowing lawns.
Now, O-Town is on a pedestal in the middle of a room that's essentially a giant silver pod. I don't know how to explain it, but in fifteen seconds, I want to see a light sabre. No, Lou, that's not a euphemism. There's general dancing. During the slow-motion "Liquid Dreams, waterfalls and streams" line, the guys are doing those running movements they produced to such unfortunate effect during "Miss America." But it looks fitting here with waterfalls in the background and running water at their feet. I still don't get it, mind you, but at least it doesn't scare me.
Now for the nooky. Ashley -- standing up, staring at the camera and looking very pretty -- gets mauled and rubbed by three Liquid Women. The closest he's ever gotten to that before is Shelli and her Liquid Eyeliner. Trevor dips one woman, and the end effect is that he's in the process of placing her on a bed for one night of jungle sex. Trev, you Bronx tiger, you. Grrrowl. God, another Liquid Woman is on all fours, and I swear it looks like Erik's riding her back. What IS this? Liquid Bestiality?
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And then there's Dan. Yeah. If Dan was in the process of taking one vest off and putting on another, would he be a transvestite?
As the song fades out, the camera retreats from the condom tunnel and back outside it. The ring disappears. "As the Condom Closes." Maybe that's the B-side track.
There it is. And, all ridicule aside, O-Town's first music video is actually slightly good -- considering how much they needed it to look slick. The video is a very professional offering, a blend of whimsy and futurism that's spit-shined to the glossiest-possible finish. It's Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream" video with a dash of Backstreet Boy. It's Terminator 2 cross-bred with The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. It's Howards End meets Pimps Up, Hos Down. Except for that last one -- but I'm hoping that theme will appear in a tell-all Ranger Marc biography.
The point is, the video's not great -- but it's precisely the dash of authenticity O-Town desperately needs to gain credibility in the MTV crowd and, in theory, beyond it.
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