The year was 2000. Unsustainable bubbles were all the rage. The dot-coms and their historic burst would garner much of the nation’s attention, but there was an equally urgent, if not more important rupture upsetting another lauded institution of the time, the boy band. N’SYNC and BSB were riding high the spoils of countless fans worldwide so naturally other lesser, inferior acts wanted a piece of that pie; an action that would prove catastrophic to the genre.

Enter O-Town, the five piece formed at the hand of the era’s other culture craze…reality television. Featured on the first season of ABC’s Making The Band, the boys were bound together through their questionable looks, perceived marketability, and nominal talent. That losing combination would prove to be the beginning of the end, as the foolhardy quintet would release the dubious debut single “Liquid Dreams.”

Titled after the not so subtle reference to a pubescent boy’s nocturnal emission, the synth-laden ode to music’s perfect leading lady is actually pretty catchy in a so-bad-it’s-good sense. Over a conventional pop beat, the gents list off A-listers most covetable traits like something out of an even more juvenile Weird Science remake. This comical ‘morpharotic dream’ featured the flavors of Madonna’s wild style, Janet Jackson’s smile, and a body like Jennifer to name a slight few. A probable hotty, but definite creeper. And while a moderate success [the cut managed to reach number 10 here in the US], it ushered in a wave of bottom feeder copycats finally signalling the golden age of the boy band was dead.