The formula band flurry/boy-band barfalon began with New Kids on the Block. Now they wanna re-pollute the airwaves like it’s 1991.

No longer can we deny this sad, shameful chapter in U.S. history:

Even Halle “I have Hit & Run Anmesia” Berry can’t deny this atrocity!

I’m sorry to have to remind everyone of such a dark time in U.S.– indeed the world’s– cultural history, but in the name of teaching a meaningful lesson I will.

Does anyone remember what the billboard hot 100 looked like 10-15 years ago? For those of you who blocked it out–along with other traumatic childhood memories– I’ll sum it up in two words. Here, take your pick: boy “band”. Formula “band”. Pupetter-led “band”.

Except in this case, the term “band” equals a group of pre-selected, pre-pubescent boys, all of whom share three characteristics:

(1) passable dancing ability (can be trained with a choreographer);
(2) passable singing ability (with aid of vocal coach and heavy computer remixing);

…and most importantly,
(3) Non-threatening type of sex appeal (see Sanjaya from American Idol) that entices 12 year-old girls to cry, swoon and drool… then spend their allowances on cheap Chinese imports bearing the likeness of said “band”-mate.

This dark time in musical history over a decade.

And then people woke and/or grew up. Tired of saccarine junk-pop. The boybanders left the airwaves without having any lasting impact on the evolution of music.

Phew.

Ahh, but that’s not to sat they left no destruction behind.

One can hardly fathom the sheer volume of landfill space devoted to New Kids On The Block trapper-keepers, Backstreet Boys lunchboxes, ‘N Sync posters, and so on. The way I see it, at minimum, each boybander should have to plant 50 trees per year in order to help negate his carbon footprint!

But hey, at least our fellow humans have quit embarrassing themselves by supporting faux-musicians! Finally, we’ve come to a time where the only way a boy-bander can get airtime is to do trainwreck reality tv.

And this is where they really shine, IMHO. Did anyone catch House of Carters on E! ? C’est magnifique! Très insipide! Genius!

In fact, boy-banders make such excellent reality-show subjects that I, for one, am willing to grant them amnesty for their past sins against music/culture, as if they’d never even polluted the audio airwaves with a single song!

I say: let them do their stints in Mtv and Vh1… as long as said stints are limited to shows like Celebrity Rehab, The Hills, The Real World, The Surreal Life, and Flavor of Love. I don’t begrudge them the ability to earn a semi-sleazy living. I just want to protect music’s cultural heritage!

But like African dictators, some people just won’t hear it when the world begs them to disappear…

Just when it looked like these musicians “entertainers” had found their place on basic cable, on 30 Jan 2008 Elizabeth Hassle-bin-laden put forth a most terrifying plight .

Side note: I knew she was a little nutty, but president of a cultural smut-pushing fanclub?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but it looks as if they weren’t just posturing.

Please. Make. It. Stop. People are already pointing to this decade as the redux of the 70’s, with gas prices, stagflation, and a presidntial candidate who just may turn out to be the second coming of Jimmy Carter. Who’ll get elected because he’s the anti-Nixon/Johnson Bush.

Some things are better left forgotten.

Seriously, Old New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys Men, et. al., I think the rest of the country would support me in offering you this deal:

Stay out of the recording studios. File your past transgressions against contributions to pop-culture under “quaint time in history”; they’ll do well next to other atrocities like acid-washed jeans, disco and MC Hammer pants.)

In return, we– along with the state of New Jersey/landfill capital USA — will forgive your sins against mother earth.

That’s right: act now, and despite your Bigfoot-sized carbon footprints, we won’t make you plant any trees or pick up trash.

In short: Produce no new waste, and we’ll absolve you of responsibility for the old.

Act now, and as a bonus, you’ll save yourself from (further) public humiliation! We understand that your definition thereof is, shall we say, elastic, but trust us, the following clip is nothing to be proud of circa 2008.

I especially like it when you try to get the audience to sing along…

Just imagine how that will look 10 years from now.

Because the world needs another reason to dislike Elizabeth Hasselbeck…

It’s official: I have joined the Hasselbeck-hating herd. That’d be Elizabeth Hasselbeck aka “Hasselbitch”, The View’s lone Republican.

This whole time, when everyone else was hating-on Elizabeth, I really wanted to like her. She is, after all, the panelist who most resembles moi, physically and demographically speaking. She’s young-ish, blonde, college-educated, fashion-obsessed, and unafraid to speak politics.

But that’s where the similarities end. Ideologically, I am most in line with a middle aged black comic who has been divorced 4 times. Whoopi Goldberg is my Sista! Who knew?

Still, make no mistake: it is not her narrow-minded view of Roe v. Wade that drove me to join the Hasselbeck-hating herd. Nor was it her insipid, literal-minded, overly judgmental stance on religion, education and/or values.

It was something far more important.

Today, as seen in the clip below, Hasselbitch’s sentiment left a taste in my mouth that no amount of Listerine will obliterate.

For those of you that didn’t watch the clip, I’ll sum it up as follows:

To everyone else’s horror (with the possible exception of Sherri “Is the world flat?” Shepherd), Hasselbitch squeals, “Guess who’s coming back you guys? New Kids on the Block!”

Without the smallest hint of facetiousness, mind you.To which Joy says, “You remind me of [your 2 year old daughter] Grace right now”. Among other things, verbal and otherwise.

If only I’d been around to really tell her how it is!

Among musicians bands err.. musical performers, NKOTB holds a special place in the darkest part of my soul. ‘Tis a place previously inhabited only by the likes of OJ Simpson and perhaps, a few sorority “sisters” from my college days (and you know who you are, backstabbing bitches!!).

This New Kids on the Block are the first “Formula Band” I was made aware of. Someone later pointed out that The Monkees came first, but in my mind, the New Kids will always be the first band to exist solely as the result of some creepy middle-aged pedophilic money-hungry puppeteer.

(Left) The New Kids on the Block… before they were old; (Right) Lou Perelman, The creepy, pedophilic con-artist Svengali behind later incarnations of NKOTB 98 Degrees, O-Town, N’Sync, et. al.

They cheapened the musical process, lowering artistic standards forever. Worst of all, they paved the way for the proliferation of boy bands, whose members’ only talents involve lip-syncing and dancing.

After the rise of NKOTB, boy bands went on to multiply like new strains of hepatitis. Meanwhile, countless numbers of genuinely talented, organic bands– possible modern-day Beatles equivalents–got dropped by their respective labels to make room for these musical caricatures, whose only genius lied in marketing. And the ability to lip-sync, perhaps.

Hell, even Eminem had substance!

All the while, kids growing up went unexposed to music created outside of a laboratory-type setting. Unless they were able to get their hands on non-mainstream magazines like The Face [R.I.P.], these kids never got to experience the solace that a teenager feels when reading the lyrics to a Smiths CD, or be wowed by the musical synergistic genius of, say, Daft Punk.

Growing up, I was alarmed sufficiently by this phenomenon to write a HS research paper on the topic. It read like a doom-and-gloom manifesto, and was titled something like New Kids on the Block Bring Death to Music and Culture.

In the paper, I predicted that the upcoming generation would be ruined by the diet of bubble-gum pseudo-pop they were ingesting. It was sugar for the soul, when what these kids really needed was some organic, unprocessed protein, like the modern day Beatles-equivalents the labels would later dump in favor of O-Town.

If we didn’t diversify the cultural diet being fed to these kids via the airwaves, I argued, their souls would fail to develop properly and would be forever scarred by malnutrition, like the poor kids in Africa.

They would grow idolize people with no talent, ’stars’ who were famous for nothing but fake tans and bad, bleached-out hair extensions.

Do you think I was on to something?

Yeah, me too.

Which is why I’m trying not to hate Hasslebeck so much. She can’t help it. She was raised on NKOTB.

Like she said to a disgusted Whoopi in the clip above:

“The New Kids on the Block are my generation’s Beatles”.