The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story

The Boy Bands were basically, now that we get to really see what their only real talent was, barbershop quartets/quintets with drum machines manufacturing songs written by professionals... musicians other than the boys themselves, who were handed big deals but, so it seems in the case of The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, their deals weren't big enough...

Making the most intriguing aspect take place during the first part in which we learn of the rise of these two very famous groups (on the heels of New Kids on the BLock) alongside their founding manager Lou Pearlman, who made money with blimps, or airplanes, or something...

It's after both boy bands sue the central figure Pearlman does the documentary get a bit dry and uninteresting, mainly because the leftover groups that Pearlman created never made any kind of lasting impression... in fact, they weren't even worthy enough to make fun of, and hardly even register on the pop culture conscience...

Since this was produced by Lance Bass, there should have been more info centering on those two big bands and Pearlman's connection with them, and then leave the last half of the third/final episode about all the people he ripped off instead of that stuff being dragged through one and a half episodes...

Either way, this wasn't a bad doc, and filled the time nicely... but didn't stick to the things that people would actually care (or know) about.

At some point you get the feeling one of his artist must have produced this and low and behold....Lance Bass. Well, what was mentioned very quickly was that Mr. Pearlman Bought a talent agency (who he un knowingly) was under investigation and that when the FBI starts spying on him etc. Because he bought a company that had a bad track record.

Amazing documentary, but it fails to focus more on how he tricked all those people and how much money he actually stolen. It is more focused on his personality and how people close to him perceived him as a person. His personality trait to always brag, talk too much and always be at your service is red flag in the any kind of the business. Also I thought I'd see more of the FBI investigation and a more detailed explanation of his fraud. I'm coming from music business and his contract agreement between artists, and him as an manager, is basically how all the contracts in music business look. Even big artists like Taylor swift signed that same contract. I'm not saying this is normal but you should investigate more that side of music as a business. There would be some interesting facts, and you will find out that record labels and a bunch of other people were profiting with no work at all on these bands, while those bands were doing all the hard work. Then you will understand where he find his ideas for fooling people and stealing money.

I thought this was done really well from start to finish.Be nice to have few more of Back Street Boys and N sync with opinions even if phoned in on camera from other destinations. After older people got duped in business with Lou. I feel sad how much life have left in them. Aaron Carter, I don't get the stupidity of his words and believe. The other bands after the great two parted ways in very public fight. Puzzling to one, how much wants band fame and pay, so still signed with this lunatic. Those are incidents that they could have stopped but didn't. So I have little tears for that middle story piece.

This deserved better than YouTube show, but maybe rights and showing move to other carriers after contract done or side deals made from start. 7/10 PS.I wonder if Lou was the paperboy when in jail?

Most written here was common knowledge before doc and what i wrote so i see no spoilers given out.

Found it very interesting and appealing. Didn't know so much about the back story of those two popular bands (and of the other ones) until now. Know I guess I'm a bit more knowledgeable about this :). Oh, and I finally know why the "Bye Bye Bye" song is titled this way. Cool documentary, with great insights, after all.