Bach-St Beuys
Translated from the French by Daniel Davis
illustration by Ans
World-renowned Music/Theatre/Film/Media Critic Jean-Paul Bavard met recently with the members of one of the world’s most popular singing groups: Billy, Timmy, B.J., Corey and Lester, better known as the Backstreet Boys. They discussed such issues as the group’s incredible popularity and fame, the pressures of success, contemporary linguistic theory, and pre-teen girls.
Jean-Paul Bavard: Gentlemen, as I sit here and gaze upon the famous Backstreet Brothers, live and in person for the first time, I am struck by the fact that you each looks so unique, and so different from each other. It is difficult to believe that you are all brothers.
Timmy: We’re not brothers! We just sing together.
Jean-Paul Bavard: Actually, I believe that you are mistaken. But it makes no matter. Ca ne fait rein. More important questions remain. As you are doubtlessly aware, Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss linguist, pioneered the study of words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects, and their significance and meaning in arts and the media. However, Structuralists of the Lacan school, as well as the disciples of Peirce, such as Ivor Richards and Claude Levi-Strauss, argued that binary oppositions were the basis of the underlying classifications systems within cultures. Where do you see the music and videos of your oeuvre fitting in on this continuum of semiotic study?
Billy: Huh?
B.J.: Levi-Strauss, like the jeans?
Corey: I don’t get what you mean.
Timmy: Uh, we’re just, like, here to say peace and love to all our fans out there. We wouldn’t be where we are without each and every one of you.
B.J.: Word, dude.
Jean-Paul Bavard: Ah, it is unsurprising that you would attempt to remain neutral on une question of such a complex and explosive nature. Very well, we move onward to la musique. On your next single, the controversial “Tearin’ Up My Heart,” Corey handles the lead vocals…
Timmy: That’s not the name of it!
Billy: Huh?
Corey: No, dude, our song is called “Back to Your Heart.” “Tearin’ Up My Heart” is an N’Sync song.
Jean-Paul Bavard: Ah, surely a crucial distinction to literally hundreds of preteen girls worldwide. I stand corrected. But this begs the question of your intense rivalry with such other similar Boy Bands as l’Sink, 98 Degrees, and Depeche Mode. If you were to have a fistfight to the death against the members of l’Sink, which group would emerge victorious, other than the listening public as a whole?
B.J.: The media is really overdoing this whole rivalry thing. There really isn’t a rivalry between us.
Corey: But we could beat them up.
Timmy: Definitely, we could take them.
Jean-Paul Bavard: That momentous event is eagerly anticipated throughout the world, without a doubt. Until that happy day, we are left to discuss the rather more mundane events of the effects of internationale pop music superstardom upon one’s personal and private life. It can often be very difficult to deal with such things as wealth, fame, popularity, and millions of teenage girls demanding that you gratify them sexually. Such pressures and demands have ruined the careers of many superstars of the past, including such incredible meteoric talents as Donny Osmond, Anson “Potsie” Williams, Leif Garrett, and Bobby Goldsboro. Certainement, you have learned much from their very public tribulations and difficulties. Which of these superstars of the past has influenced you the most, and why?
Billy: Huh?
Corey: We don’t really have anything in common with any of those guys. We’re coming from a more legit, real place, and what our music…
Jean-Paul Bavard: Truly, truly fascinating. Yet every artist who is granted a moment in the spotlight has a crisis, une supreme challenge that must be faced and overcome if long-term success is to occur. Surely, your group’s moment of crisis must have occurred the day that the amazing superstar Ricky Martin left your band to begin his fantastique solo career. What prompted his controversial decision to leave your group? Was it creative songwriting differences, a lover’s quarrel, or perhaps common everyday jealousy?
Timmy: Ricky Martin left Menudo! He was never in Backstreet Boys!
Jean-Paul Bavard: Obviously, his departure is still a very sensitive subject. Very well, we can move on to other, less controversial topics. It is fascinating that, within the strict, unified structure of your group, that each of you has developed a unique and distinct personality. For example, Billy is known as “The Smart One;” B.J., you are known as “The Sensitive One,” and Timmy is known as “The Cute One.” Which one of you is known as the Perverted One?
Corey: What?
B.J.: What the hell are you talking about?
Corey: Hey, I’m “The Cute One,” damn it! Timmy just had lipo done! How cute is that?
Timmy: Shut up, asshole!
B.J.: Stop it! Stop it! Please, I can’t take it anymore!
Jean-Paul Bavard: Well, it seems we have touched upon yet another controversial and sensitive sujet. It is a pity, but we must move on to other topics. We should now discuss your amazing popularity, and the perceptions of many people who hear your band’s music. Surely, despite your incredible success and fame, it must be difficult for you to be frequently misunderstood by large segments of the populace, and by much of the Rock Critic Intelligentsia.
Billy: Huh?
Corey: Yeah. I mean, the critics have taken some really cheap shots at…
Jean-Paul Bavard: Despite the obvious campy, kitschy, comic satire of your music, and the completely over-the-top nature of your parodically prefabricated image, many people seem to not get the joke, as it were. Are you frustrated by the fact that so many people continue to take you seriously?
B.J.: What? What are you saying?
Jean-Paul Bavard: Merely that les artistes such as yourselves must often struggle to be understood, to overcome the preconceived notions of the media, for example. All the Genius satirists of the past have confronted this problem – Twain, Bunuel, H.L. Mencken, Karl Marx, Freud, and Voltaire, to name but a few. Fortuitously, people eventually realized that they were all just joking, but not always before some comically embarrassing mishaps, such as Psychoanalysis and the Korean War. The greatest parody is frequently indistinguishable from sincerity. It can be a very fine line to walk, and it must be very challenging to constantly push that envelope in such a way as your brilliant music constantly must.
Billy: Huh?
Lester: From what you’ve told us thus far, Mr. Bavard, I’ve come to understand that your grasp of linguistics and semiotic theory is a tenuous one at best. I suggest that you closely study the works of the Saussurean Roland Barthes. Oh yeah, and I’d like to give a shout out to all my hommies, East Side, keepin’ it real!
(An uncomfortable silence for several seconds)
Jean-Paul Bavard: Well, back to our discussion. B.J., you are known to be dating a famous young singing star, who has an amazingly successful career of her own. What is your relationship like with the glamorous mademoiselle Ms. Debbie Gibson?
B.J.: Who the hell is Debbie Gibson?
Jean-Paul Bavard: Ah, a clever, noncommittal denial to avoid controversy. I sense that B.J. is wise beyond his years. Very well, then. Corey, with your odd facial hair, your ever-present cowboy hat, and your skin-tight leather costumes, you obviously enjoy dressing as a homosexual leather boy fantasy stereotype figure. Is this part of your band’s sly satirical parody of our materialistic consumer society?
Corey: Hey, shut up!
Jean-Paul Bavard: Still, you are all well-dressed, pretty-faced young boys with fabulous hair, and choose to call your group the Backdoor Boys. This begs an obvious question that all of your fans are literally dying to know the answer to. Let it never be said that Jean-Paul Bavard is afraid to ask the most difficult of queries. I will ask, and I will trust you to answer with the utmost candor and honesty.
(More uncomfortable silence)
Jean-Paul Bavard: The question that everyone demands the answer to: which one of you is the lead singer?
Corey: Me, obviously.
Timmy: You are not! I’m the lead singer!
Billy: Huh?
B.J.: Stop it! Stop the fighting! I can’t take it anymore! Besides, I’m obviously the lead singer!
Corey: No way! I’m the lead singer!
(Screams, shouts and crashing sounds are heard, punctuated by high-pitched screams and squeals.)
Jean-Paul Bavard: The popular singers the Backdoor Boys are now experiencing some of the creative tension that inescapably plagues all artistic geniuses. I thank them for their time, and for revealing to us some of the many ordeals and conflicts that they must endure as they continue their struggle to produce some of the most important, vital, and influential work in the world of contemporary music today.
