The Monkees

(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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(Legal) Career Killers: The Lovin’ Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield and Pot Busts.

Welcome to (Legal) Career Killers — a series that looks at how the law, lawyers or lawsuits killed a band’s or artist’s careers. In other words: They fought the law and the law won.

It might be hard for anyone who grew up at any point prior to the 2010s to wrap their heads around just how little many police departments, prosecutors, and governments care about marijuana now. As of this writing, cannabis is fully legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia and legal for medical use in 25 more (subject to some restrictions in some states pertaining to dosage or types of products).

That’s a far cry from when marijuana was widely considered a gateway drug to hardcore narcotics, like cocaine, heroin or LSD. “Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States,” said Ronald Reagan during his 1980 Presidential campaign. “And we haven’t begun to find out all of the ill-effects, but they are permanent ill-effects.”

During the tumultuous 1960s, marijuana was a staple of the counterculture — especially when it came to the music scene. Of course, that drew the attention of the 5-0, and as two major bands from that era found out, Johnny Law isn’t one that you want to mess with.

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Career Killers: “Girl You Know It’s True” by Milli Vanilli

Imagine a world in the multiverse where MTV had produced a show in the late 80s/early 90s called “All or Nothing.” Introducing actors Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, the show follows two best friends from Europe as they form a band called “Milli Vanilli” and try to land a recording contract while navigating the strange land known as Hollywood, California. Along the way, they meet the women of their dreams and frantically try to track to them down because the girls forgot their numbers (even after they advised them “baby don’t“). And they have to convince a producer to give them a second chance after they missed an audition and blamed it on the rain. Girl, you know it’s true!

Maybe then we would have accepted Morvan and Pilatus lip syncing to songs other people sang and recorded. After all, famous actors like Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn and Christopher Plummer didn’t actually sing in West Side Story, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, respectively. Decades later, Rami Malek would win an Oscar for lip-syncing to Freddie Mercury’s vocals in Bohemian Rhapsody. Additionally, TV shows like The Monkees, The Partridge Family and The Heights often used studio musicians and singers on the recordings that were utilized on the show.

Instead, we got an industry-changing scandal that ruined the lives and careers of the two men who made up Milli Vanilli and helped kill off the popularity of producer-driven R&B/pop dance bands in the 90s.

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

(Legal) Career Killers: The Lovin’ Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield and Pot Busts.

Career Killers: “Girl You Know It’s True” by Milli Vanilli