The 1985 American Bandstand 33 1/3 rd anniversary TV special was a blockbuster in my house. The 2002 American Bandstand 50 th anniversary was not. In fact, it was pathetic.
That 33 1/3 show had "important event" tattooed all over it. Three plus hours in length. A room full of musical celebrities and "regulars" (AB dancers) sitting at classy round dinner tables getting interviewed between live performances and video highlight clips. It was less a TV ratings ploy than a high school reunion dinner, with everyone's musical heroes past and present as the invited guests. Motown, fifties teen pop, disco and soul, eighties synth, it was all featured, I was weaned on it, was mad for it, and thus the show was an oft-watched musical yearbook for the whole family.
Besides the somewhat illogical celebration of the 50th anniversary of a show that went off the air in 1989, the show had a vast number of faults.
I can understand the reasoning behind putting the regulars in the front sections. But all those shots of them dancing like glitzed up baby boomers boogieing down at a VH1 divas special? Yeah, they ARE the glitzed up baby boomers that we see boogieing down at VH1 divas specials, but you can't expect that to look cool. I'm all for letting them have their fun when it's the Village People on stage, but it's more plastic than Tupperware when they're doing it for Alanis Morrissette.
The clips of performances from recent American Music Awards (tm Dick Clark) were riveted to the show with a staple gun. Showing Creed and 'NSync performing on a totally different show only accentuates how much times have changed. It doesn't bring the music full circle, from a point starting with the boy toys of yesteryear (Beatles, Anka, Dion) and ending with the boy toys of today (you know who they are). No matter how loud the girls scream for 'NSync compared to how loud they used to scream for the Beatles, we're long past the days of watching teenagers get funky to their fave pop tunes and making dimwitted comments between songs. Those days ended in the late 80's/early 90's, which coincidentally coincides in a rather coincidental way with the rise of "alternative" music, the sickening fall and deafening thud of hair metal, synth-pop, and Paula Abdul (i.e. the stuff that AB was made of during the 80's), and the death of AB itself. By the way, before you counter with Much Music's "Electric Circus", remember that club culture in the 90's was similar to rock and roll in the 50's -- novel to the mainstream, its own fashion style and lingo, and most importantly, perceived as dangerous and subversive to the "grownups". It's a guilty pleasure, it's remarkably daft, and it too will run its course.
Oh, and the supergroup was cool as always, but c'mon, all THREE of the Bangles?
