The David Cassidy Jinx

Charlie Angus' guide to the boy bands

HighGrader Magazine March/April 2001
Seventeen-year-old Scott Moffatt was playing the part of the bad boy and 2,000 screaming teeny boppers were going wild. Scott, however, didn't seem reassured. While his three brothers - Clint, Bob and Dave - smiled, bobbed, crooned and did every cute thing they had been programmed to do since the age of five, Scott's stage presence bordered at times on downright surly. He stocked the stage, sneering at his adoring fans. He turned up the volume on their favourite lightweight, bubblegum love songs until they were blisteringly loud and defiant rockers.
Needless to say the chicks loved him for it.
Such behaviour used to be covered by a multitude of inexact metaphors. For example, in another age, a young man sporting Scott's behaviour might be referred to as a young turk or a cock of the walk. His interpersonal skills might be described as being affected by a chip on the shoulder or a snotty disposition. But the modern vernacular has a word that captures more of the nuance of what was driving Scott Moffatt - "attitude" as in "he has attitude." In shortscript it's simply said as "tood".
As I watched him strutt his stuff in front of the crowd at North Bay's Memorial Gardens, it seemed fair to say he had major tood action happening.
In one sense, what kid wouldn't have attitude if every move you made resulted in pretty girls screaming themselves senseless? Certainly Scott Moffatt is part of that select few who are idealized by 50% of their age group (female) while being derided by the other 50%. Needless to say, the latter group can be accused of sour grapes, being in the situation where most girls probably run from them rather than to them.
But I sensed in Scott that his "toodnal" disposition was a way of rebelling against the graven image of the loveable boy idol. It's a role he's had to play since birth.
And while many might think the child/teen idol has the world on a string, the string has a way of fraying pretty quickly.
How many child stars can you think of that made the smooth transition into adult careers? A few, such as Shirley Temple, Ron Howard and Tony Difranco, made names for themselves by stepping off the stage. Others, like David Cassidy and Donny Osmond, have struggled to build adult careers while fighting the constant comparisons with their youthful personas.
But the transition to successful adult star has eluded almost everyone but Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Michael Jackson. And of these three, monetary earnings aside, you're still confronted with a two to one ratio in the "screwed up as a human being" department. The fact is, child stars have a dismal success rate as adults.
The syndrome is something akin to the modern version of the ancient Aztec virgin sacrifice. But instead of slaughtering the golden youth at the end of their reign, our child stars become the butt of cynical jokes and the leering attentions of the paparatzi.
It seems we can't get enough of the stories about the failings of Ricky Nelson, Danny Bonaduci or Gary Coleman. What was once cute and loveable about them adds to the perversity of their failed adult promise.
It's almost as if we can't forgive them for the sin of aging.
I don't know if Scott Moffatt has pondered this predicament, but if he wants to throw off some tood while he plays, I say more power to him.

To give you the context of the Moffatt world, we need to do a little tour through the multi-million dollar boy band industry.
The boy bands are everywhere. They stare down from posters hanging on the walls of girls across the world - cute Nick, rebellious AJ, sensitive Justin Timberlake. The main bands - Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, 98 Degrees and O-Town are riding the staggering merchandising wave that comes with demographic blips. The blip in this case, is the remarkable buying power associated with North American females between the ages of nine and sixteen.
In fact, the younger end of the market (9-13) has caught the attentions of an otherwise lacklustre record industry and been given its own classification -- the tweens.
Not only do the girls buy all the records (sorry, CDs) but they just have to have the merchandise too - posters, t-shirts, glossy magazines, cutesy bios and collectible photos. The band N'Sync even has their own brand of lookalike Ken dolls.
The forums for learning who's hot and who's not in this 'tween universe are the teen 'zines - Tiger Beat, Bop and J-14.
Tiger Beat is the grandaddy of the teeny bopper world. Back in the early '70s it supplied cute and loveable boy heroes like David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, Bobby Sherman and The Jacksons.
The magazine catered to the Bay City Roller phenomenon, the Leif Garrett fad and stirred the New Kids on the Block craze. Over the decades, the faces have changed along with bits of the lingo (boys are no longer "faves" they're "hotties") but the goods haven't really changed. Nick Carter and Lance Bass are merely modern updates of Paul Anka and Fabian.
Take a group like N'Sync, for example. The band has made waves with heavy duty choreography, slick videos and funny hair but the whole gestalt is classic 1950s doo-wop -- five cute boys singing idealized love songs. Its Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons, minus the falsetto.
Just check out the themes being sung by the boy groups - "Miss You Like Crazy", "Quit Playing Games With My Heart", "Girl of My Dreams,"- it's music to listen to as you cry on your pillow; lyrics to daydream over while staring out the window in Grade Nine math class.
What makes the boy band phenomenon so successful is that there are a range of acts tailored to the meet different taste ranges in the tween set. At the entry level of the market are the younger sisters in the eight to ten-year-range. These kids are hooked on loveable, huggable Aaron Carter (younger brother of Backstreet Boy dude Nick Carter). Don't ask me what skill or talent Aaron has to warrant making it on the poster circuit, but his mug is everywhere. He's made a fortune playing the cute kid brother, a veritable Ricky Schroeder of the millennium.
At the upper end of the tween/teen market are the boy groups that, while still being cute and adorable, are mixing in the hint of menace.
It is this double message that drives parents crazy. And as much as parents might hate to admit it, this music puts them squarely on the other side of the generation gap. Part of the problem for adults is the inability to maintain two contradictory positions at the same time - a task handled with complete ease by any 15-year-old.
Thus when the Backstreet Boys sing with exaggerated sincerity -"I'll Never Break Your Heart" followed up by the leering "If You Want to Be Good Girl - Get Yourself a Bad Boy" any parent worth their salt knows exactly what's going down.
You'd never let your daughter drive off in a car with those five bozos anymore than you'd trust your daughter to a bunch of sailors on leave. Never mind how cute their eyes or how sincere their singing.
The message is even more mixed when confronting the new female style icons - Britney Spears and Christine Aguilera. Few parents could look at these minxes without seeing a walking, talking advertisement for teen pregnancy.
After all, what other teen girl allegedly gets a 'bosom enhancement' when she's 14 and then makes a public promise to remain a virgin until married? Ya, right.
And then to top it off, the young Ms. Spears follows up her virginal promise with lyrics like "I guess I'm not that innocent after all". If this girl didn't have a multi-million dollar recording contract she'd be a shoo in for a boot camp episode on the Jenny Jones show.
When confronted by these overt mixed messages, today's parents are in the same boat as those poor, vilified parents back in the days of Elvis. In those days, parents were "square" -- today's folks get tagged with the put down "Dad, you're so '95" (as in 1995).
What links both generations of parents is the concern that the music their children are listening to is vulgar. Parents in the 1950s believed the only message in the hip-wiggling and derivative black music was sex.
Of course, anyone who listens to the old R&B "Race" records will realize that the Ozzie and Harriets were right - it was about sex. To kids growing up, however, rock'n'roll was about a whole lot more. But as they moved into adulthood, most folk tended to forget about those intangibles, like freedom, magic and style.
Teen-agers hear and see the word very differently from us old fogies. In fact, it is quite possible for a teenager to hear lines like "if you want to please me you have to rub me the right way" (Christine Aguilera) or "Like a one eyed-cat peeping in the sea food store/I can look at you and tell you ain't no child no more" (Big Joe Turner) and not think anything dirty at all.
Behind most successful child stars is the (often notorious) stage parent. In the case of the Moffatts, Canada's international boy group export, its Dad Moffatt, Frank. The Moffatts were born in Whitehorse - Scott in 1983, followed by the triplets (Clint, Bob and Dave) a year later. With four photogenic, lookalike babies to raise, father Frank recognized a marketable commodity when he saw one. Everything about these boys has been carefully packaged since they were in diapers.
He had the boys appearing in commercials when they were toddlers. They plied their trade singing cute songs in matching outfits as a street busking act when they were six. By then, the New Country wave was taking the music industry by storm. Dad Moffatt outfitted the boys with kerchiefs, cowboy boots, a little line dancing act and then put them on the road. By the time they were nine they were doing over 100 shows a year.
When Scott was ten they got their first big break, a weekly spot on a TV show "Nashville Now." Up until this time, the act consisted of the four boys up front singing in carefully co-ordinated clothes. The musical duties were handled by hired professional musicians. Along the way, however, they learned the craft of being a band with each boy learning an instrument. They also became very credible singers. But the selling card was still the cute factor.
In 1997, the boys traded in their country kitch and crossed over into the burgeoning pop idol field.
They released "Chapter 1: A New Beginning" with a dozen or so very singable dream boy anthems. The record launched them as stars in countries around the world (selling over two million units).

At the end of every performance, the boys sit for an hour or so signing merchandise for the fans. It's a tough grind. At the North Bay show, hundreds of excited girls lined up for the opportunity to meet their dream boats. Every movement and slouch Scott made as he sat at the autograph table brought gasps from the line-up of expectant beauties. But Scott Moffatt barely looked at the girls. He seemed bored, listless and tired. For them it might have been a dream come true but for him it was just a cold Monday night in a hockey arena in North Bay.
It is said that David Cassidy, a teen hero from the early 1970s, used to burn his fan mail. His main competitor Bobby Sherman, simply walked away from stardom, eventually becoming a paramedic.
Scott Moffatt is trying another form of rebellion. My guess from watching him in action is that the elder Moffatt boy is looking to push beyond the cute factor and garner some credibility as a serious pop singer.
He's been pushing the confines of the cutesy songs with a sonic power that owes more to Metallica or Nirvana than it does to the Partridge Family. To keep apace of Scott's boundary pushing, the rest of the band need serious make-overs. It's a tougher image leaning closer to Leader of the Pack than Puppy Love.
Whether the fans or the record company goes along is anybody's guess. The Bay City Rollers tried to move beyond the confines of bubblegum hits and silly outfits when they were still kings of the world, but the record companies just wouldn't hear of it. The next thing the Rollers knew they were broke, discredited and the butt of a milliong jokes.They've spent the last quarter century trying to prove to the world that they were a legitimate band.
How will Scott and his brothers fair? Given the fact that its a family act and they have some pretty darned good tunes, I'd hope they do well.
But then I've always had a partiality for pop tunes. I'd take the Moffatt's hit "When She Walks in the Room My Heart Goes Bang, Bang Boom" any day over that oh-so-serious Lilith Fair routine.
I say go for it, Scott. Hit them loud and give them lots of tood.

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