Is it already time for another boy-band resurgence? Didn’t we just get done with the last one? I suppose that with New Kids on the Block reuniting and the Backstreet Boys showing up to shut down TRL, the emergence of Varsity Fanclub shouldn’t come as a surprise, but listening to the self-titled debut album from this corporately constructed entity still feels like chewing on wet cardboard. About half of the 14 songs sound like 1998 all over again, but not in a good way—there’s the requisite drippy Diane Warren ballad, some blatant Michael Jackson impersonating and a bit of weak white-boy rapping.
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The rest of the album mirrors more contemporary pop. There are club-focused Usher and Justin Timberlake rip-offs that make the Fanclub guys sound way out of their league, and a number of songwriting contributions from wuss-rock kingpin/Timbaland protégé Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic that sound like slightly more beat-heavy OneRepublic songs. Saddest of all is the prevalence of Auto-Tune for a group whose primary selling point is ostensibly singing ability (well, maybe behind attractiveness and dance moves, but those aren’t apparent on record).
The album is best at its cheesiest; ballads “Half of You” and “Bad Habit” are pure catchy schmaltz, with charmingly awful lyrics (“How can I give you all of me/When all I get is half of you?”). If Varsity Fanclub are the vanguard of the new boy-band revolution, they’re about as threatening as toy soldiers.
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