With hundreds of millions of records sold, careers that are still thriving in their fourth decade, and admiration from the likes of Taylor Swift, the boy bands the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync are absolute pop royalty. They were also the creations of one of America’s biggest criminals. It’s this bizarre duality that Netflix’s new docuseries Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam explores with energy and style.
This is the strange, extremely American story of Lou Pearlman, who got the startup money for his boy band empire by crashing his own blimps, and who eventually built a fortune by masterminding what is widely believed to be the longest-running Ponzi scheme in US history. Dirty Pop masterfully captures the many facets of a man who seemed genuinely delighted to be a part of the bands he lovingly put together, even while acting as the casting director of his own reality, putting the con on everyone from his secretary to powerful politicians and bankers.
