Max Martin

(Legal) Career Killers: Lou Pearlman and His Ponzi Scheme.

At one point, boy band impresario Lou Pearlman was, arguably, the most powerful and influential music industry mogul since Berry Gordy.

In addition to launching several popular boybands and teenybopper acts, including The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, Pearlman established a template that pop acts continue to follow to this day.

Manufacturing boy and girl bands for maximum commercial effect? Pearlman didn’t originate it (see: Menudo, The Monkees, early K-Pop or even Take That), but he definitely popularized it and turned his label into a factory, mass-producing teeny-bopper acts and watching the money roll in. In the last couple of decades, we’ve seen a ton of manufactured bands from the likes of Simon Fuller (S Club 7, Spice Girls, Now United), Simon Cowell (One Direction, Fifth Harmony, Little Mix), and so many K-Pop bands, including the biggest of them all.

Employing outside songwriters (such as a then-unknown Max Martin) to churn out hit singles? It’s practically the industry standard now. At one point in the 2010s, the Billboard singles charts were dominated by songs written by four songwriters/teams: Martin, Stargate, Ester Dean and Dr. Luke.

Using the power of television to put bands together? His Making the Band show on MTV spawned legions of imitators and demonstrated the potential of reality shows as a vehicle for musicians regardless of whether they were unknowns, established stars, or somewhere in between.

So why is his name mentioned today about as often as Voldemort’s or Chris Benoit’s? Probably because he was exposed as a con man, convicted of running a massive Ponzi scheme and embezzling over $300 million, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. That and some disturbing allegations about sexually abusing and harassing members of his boybands, and you can see why he’s been unpersoned.

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Career Killers: “Twelve Months, Eleven Days” by Gary Barlow

You’d think that being the primary frontman of a boyband would be an excellent platform for solo superstardom. After all, it’s your voice on all those hit singles and your face getting the most screen-time in music videos. Indeed, Jackson Five frontman Michael Jackson and NSYNC co-lead singer Justin Timberlake were able to parlay their group dominance into individual success. If you consider Wham! to be a boy band (I’m not sure, to be honest), then George Michael is another example.

But others weren’t able to find much success outside of their groups. Ralph Tresvant sang lead on most of New Edition’s hit singles, but only managed two hits on his own. That was one better than either Jordan Knight of New Kids on the Block or Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees managed outside of their popular groups. And, of course, we’ve covered NSYNC co-leader J.C. Chasez’s solo debut album, which flopped so badly it ended his bid for stardom before it really began.

Then there’s the curious case of Gary Barlow. The Take That frontman was a fantastic singer who sang lead on almost all of his band’s songs. And whereas most boybands relied on outside songwriters, Barlow wrote or co-wrote nine Top 10 UK hits, including five #1 singles, during the band’s initial run from 1991 to 1996. When he went solo in 1996, the British media immediately anointed him as the next George Michael. Success was not only expected, it was preordained.

As such, that only made what eventually happened all the more shocking. In 2000, barely four years after Take That’s breakup, Barlow suffered the ignominy of being dropped by his label, all but ending his solo career. Worse, he had to watch as bandmate-turned-nemesis Robbie Williams wrote songs attacking him and making fun of his misfortune en route to becoming one of the best-selling artists in the world.

Where did it all go wrong? It started with his second album, Twelve Months, Eleven Days.

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Career Killers: “Witness” by Katy Perry

It’s strange to think that Katy Perry’s career as a major pop superstar could be over.

Between 2008 and 2016, Perry released three multi-platinum albums and amassed 18 Top 30 singles as a lead artist, including nine #1 hits. Her 2010 album, Teenage Dream, produced a record-tying 5 number one singles (only Michael Jackson’s Bad has managed to match that). She’s been credited with selling 143 million records worldwide, putting her ahead of Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, Lady Gaga, Adele, Britney Spears and many others.

That track record of sustained success should have protected her career from being completely derailed by one flop. And yet, plenty of critics and observers wrote her off after 2017’s Witness, with some even wondering if her decline marked the end of an era in pop music. Perry’s career choices since then have only seemed to confirm that her best days are behind her. In 2018, she went to the place where many music careers go when they’re on life support — the judge’s table at American Idol. Then, she did what a lot of over-the-hill pop stars do when they start to transition to being a nostalgic act: she announced a Las Vegas residency, which is scheduled to begin in December. Meanwhile, her 2020 album, Smile, landed without much fanfare and became her worst-selling record since her 2001 self-titled Christian music debut, when she was still known as Katy Hudson.

So what happened?

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Career Killers: “Yes Please!” by The Happy Mondays

When it comes to movies, there are box office bombs and then there’s Heaven’s Gate.

The 1980 western epic went massively over-budget thanks to a disastrous and well-publicized troubled production and received infamously bad reviews upon release. The film ended up being such a box office bomb that it single-handedly killed director Michael Cimino’s Hollywood career and star Kris Kristofferson’s potential as a leading man (one particularly brutal review from Vincent Canby of The New York Times wondered if Cimino had made a deal with the devil to produce his last movie, Oscar-winning classic The Deer Hunter, and now the bill had come due).

And that was just the beginning. According to the documentary Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate, the movie may have also killed off United Artists, the studio that produced it. Shortly after writing off the film’s entire $44 million budget (equivalent to nearly $140 million in today’s money), UA was sold to MGM and ceased being an independent studio. The movie may have even killed the era of the all-powerful director, as runaway disasters like Heaven’s Gate, Apocalypse Now, At Long Last Love and others caused studios to step in and start asserting control.

By those standards, Yes Please! by the Happy Mondays is the Heaven’s Gate of albums.

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Career Killers: “Schizophrenic” by J.C. Chasez (Updated)

Updated 07/13/2023: Includes information from a podcast interview involving one of this album’s producers and writers.

When it comes to transitioning from a boyband to a successful solo career, the rule of Highlander is typically in effect: There can be only one.

In other words, boybands rarely produce multiple solo stars. For instance, Gary Barlow and Mark Owen both launched solo careers after the first Take That breakup, but neither of them made much of an impact – at least not compared to their fired colleague, Robbie Williams, who became one of the biggest pop stars of the 00’s. Nick Lachey and Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees both released solo albums, but whereas the former had one big hit and one theme song that became fairly ubiquitous, I had to look up Wikipedia to remember the latter. Meanwhile, it might be too early to write One Direction’s epitaph, but it looks like Harry Styles is going to be the only real star to emerge from that group (sorry Zayn).

A couple of bands have bucked this rule. New Edition spawned multiple successful solo careers, but even then, only one member had more than one successful album. And of course, Michael wasn’t the only Jackson to become a solo star. Nevertheless, he so completely eclipsed his brothers, that he might as well have been — something that, apparently, stuck in Jermaine’s craw despite the fact that he managed a couple of gold albums and a handful of Top Ten singles.

So J.C. Chasez was already behind the 8-ball when he embarked on his solo career following NSYNC’s breakup. Bandmate Justin Timberlake had beaten him to the punch, releasing the popular and well-regarded Justified in 2002. That album, which would go on to be certified triple-platinum by the RIAA, was filled with infectious pop/R&B hits, funky beats and ear worms that allowed Timberlake to immediately establish himself as a solo superstar.

But if anyone could rise to the occasion, it was Chasez. The best singer in NSYNC and, possibly, out of all of the late 90’s/early 00’s boybands (Timberlake even admitted as much), Chasez had charisma, good looks, dancing chops and a proven track record. All he needed was to link up with the right producers and songwriters the way Timberlake had when he worked with the Neptunes and Timbaland for Justified and Chasez would be well-placed to break the Highlander curse.

Unfortunately for him, he recorded Schizophrenic.

Album Review: “Who Built the Moon?” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

There is a school of thought that the feud between the Gallagher brothers is fake – a manufactured back-and-forth between two media savvy rock stars who know that, the more they “fight,” the more publicity they get and the more albums they sell.

Now they’re releasing albums within two months of each other (in fact, it worked out so that Noel’s lead single, “Holy Mountain” came out at around the same time that his brother released his album, As You Were). It’s not quite the same as the 1990s when Oasis and Blur would release records on the same day while the compliant media would fight amongst themselves to see who could make the most “Battle of Britain” puns. That feud may have been largely manufactured, but there were real feelings of resentment on both sides. Plus, the conventional wisdom that Oasis was the band that stuck to what worked while Blur was the band that was more willing to experiment had some element of truth to it.

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Album Review: “Mind of Mine” by Zayn Malik

Zayn Malik has certainly had an interesting year.

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Album Review: “White Light” by The Corrs

White Light, the first studio album from The Corrs since 2005, is, to borrow a phrase from The Simpsons, a perfectly cromulent album. The first family of Celtic-infused pop could have used the time off to reinvent themselves and embiggen their repertoire. They could have modernized their sound. They could have experimented with different genres. Heck, they could have let violinist and background singer Sharon sing a few songs (during the last decade, both she and lead singer Andrea launched solo careers, and Sharon outsold her).

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Browsing Category

Browsing Category

(Legal) Career Killers: Lou Pearlman and His Ponzi Scheme.

Career Killers: “Twelve Months, Eleven Days” by Gary Barlow

Career Killers: “Witness” by Katy Perry

Career Killers: “Yes Please!” by The Happy Mondays

Career Killers: “Schizophrenic” by J.C. Chasez (Updated)

Album Review: “Who Built the Moon?” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Album Review: “Mind of Mine” by Zayn Malik

Album Review: “White Light” by The Corrs