'Dirty Pop: Boy Band Scam' Awkwardly Curates The Facts

The series traces how the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC were exploited by their manager. But what it leaves out, like their flawed celebrity, is far more striking.

“As soon as ‘Boyz II Men’ hit, we started emulating everything they did.”

Those are the words of 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey in Netflix’s 2021 docuseries, “This is Pop.” Lachey’s remark, in an episode examining the impact of the “Motownphilly” crooners, was a clear-eyed acknowledgement from a white boy-bander who understood that his success was on the back of Black talent.

That’s the kind of self-awareness desperately missing from the streamer’s new docuseries, “Dirty Pop: Boy Band Scam,” which begins with footage from the ’90s of the Backstreet Boys serenading a crowd of swooning fans with a cover of Shai’s “Baby I’m Yours.” No one featured in this particular series dares to say the quiet part out loud as Lachey did.

To be fair, the story examined in “Dirty Pop” doesn’t really make room for any such challenging reflections on its predominantly white boy band subjects. The series, to its detriment, often leapfrogs over prickly truths about them in order to focus on a tidier narrative about how their manager exploited them.

Dropping Wednesday on Netflix, the three-episode series traces the rise and catastrophic fall of Lou Pearlman, the creator behind some of the most successful young and largely white boy bands of the late ’90s and ’00s, including Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.