Let’s travel back in time to 2001 — a time when boy bands ruled the world.
Many of these boy bands were once household names — New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC. And you may have even enjoyed hits from their lesser-known peers, like LFO, 98 Degrees, and O-Town.
But do you remember … DREAM STREET?
Dream Street was a boy band that was formed in 1999 by two failing music producers named Brian Lukow and Louis Baldonieri. It was made up of five preteen boys — the youngest was 11, the oldest 14 — from the New York City area. All of the boys had a theatre background, meaning they were triple threats who could sing, dance, and act. Lukow and Boldonieri thought this would give Dream Street a leg up on the competition.
Unfortunately, Dream Street only existed in this form for less than three years. The band disbanded in 2002 after a nasty lawsuit between Lukow, Baldonieri, and the parents of the members of the group tore them apart. The boys’ parents accused the producers of encouraging the boys to have sex with teen girls, routinely offering them alcohol and exposing them to pornography. Yikes!
Some members of Dream Street went on to hold their own in the music industry — Jesse McCartney, previously a child actor on the soap opera “All My Children,” had significant success on the radio in 2009 (remember “Leavin'” and “Body Language” featuring T-Pain?), and he guest starred on “Fear the Walking Dead” only last week. Greg Raposo’s Facebook fan page describes him as a “rock n roll singer” — a page on which a fan very recently posted a photo of his newly-inked Raposo tattoo.
But overall, Dream Street was just a dream for a couple of sleazy-sounding music producers. However, it did leave us with an incredible gift: the music video for Dream Street’s first single, “It Happens Every Time.”
Behold … the most fascinating boy band video of 2001.
Revelist
How does one begin to dissect this masterpiece?
Do we start with Chris Trousdale’s impressive hip hop pirouettes?
The video doesn’t have much of a plot, but it DOES have this aerial shot of Dream Street dancing on the bow of a yacht.
How Puff Daddy of them.
All I can gather from this video concept is that every member of Dream Street is crushing hard.
Greg, for one, is not playing around — he wants to take you home after school to meet his mom.
After that, he’ll invite you to stay for dinner. His mom makes great lasagna.
Over dinner, Greg will say: “I just got ‘Darrin’s Dance Grooves’ on VHS. Want to put it on later? I’ll show you how to boogie.”
LOLOL. GREG, CHILL OUT!
Maybe young Jesse can give Greg a lesson or two about being suave.
One of the boys, I don’t know which one, has a crush on this girl. She is reading Nickelodeon Magazine.
The most baffling thing about this music video is the soft blur around the edges of some of the shots.
Why would you ever want to distort this incredible group karate kick?
Come for the boy band. Stay for that sexy blur.
Another confusing production choice — this shot is in color and black and white at the very same time.
Greg (or is it Frankie Galasso? Because Greg and Frankie look very, very similar) is not having the most luck …
