No surprises in O-Town's sugary debut

By Mary Jo DiLonardo
Special to CNN Interactive

"O-Town"
O-Town
J Records
(released January 23)

(CNN) -- Think "Real World" meets the Monkees. That's the roundabout way O-Town, the latest boy band, was created.

Just as the Monkees were created as much for their TV personas as their musicianship, so did the O-Town Boys come together.

Thousands of aspiring young singers last year auditioned for Lou Pearlman (the mastermind puppeteer behind 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys), who whittled the contestants down to eight. Those photogenic wannabes shared a sprawling home in Orlando, Florida, while their every move on the road to teeny-bop stardom was videotaped and turned into "Making the Band," ABC's reality show.

Now the eight are five -- Ashley, Jacob, Trevor, Erik and Dan -- and already have captured the hearts of so many of those teen girls already devoted to Nick, Justin, Lance et al.

	AUDIO
Liquid DreamsWAV sound Baby I Would WAV sound Sexiest Woman Alive WAV sound

The group's debut is pretty much what you'd expect -- catchy tunes, decent harmonies and lots of fluffy lyrics about love and pretty girls and broken hearts.

But you have to give the boys credit for trying not to stay too vanilla. The music jumps all over the board from rock to R&B, showcasing the infectious dance tunes as well as the monstrous harmonies in the big ballads.

There are tons of pop-culture references, too. In the group's first single, "Liquid Dreams," an eyebrow-raising paean to the perfect woman: "I dream about a girl who's a mix of Destiny's Child/ Just a little bit of Madonna's wild style/ With Janet Jackson's smile/ Throw in a body like Jennifer's/ You got the star of my liquid dreams."

That song, which premiered at last year's Miss America Pageant with some slick dancing and not-so-great live harmonies, is already a hit on the pop chart. The boys' mugs are already plastered all over the teen magazines. ("Ashley is the cutest!" "Jacob rocks!") And the group is touring and making the rounds of malls for autograph signings and picture-posings. The boys, apparently, are on their way.

But can the world take yet another boy band? How much money do 12-year-old girls have, anyway?

The TV show may make the difference.

Unlike their toothy boy peers, the O-Town guys showed us what they were like before they climbed into wear weird clothes and had stylists do funky things to their hair. We saw them break up with girlfriends, get chewed out for off-key singing and clumsy dancing, and hug their mothers. Some of them even cried. On national TV, no less.

Who knows whether the popularity will carry over into next season when the guys, no longer aspiring stars, may well get cocky, dealing with groupies and hard partying?

Until then, Pearlman gets points for again working his creepy kind of magic, putting together five photogenic guys with the ability to dance and harmonize.

'N Sync and Backstreet, by the way, ended up dumping Pearlman after he made them stars. But then, he didn't get them a TV show.

Official O-Town Web site

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