Netflix tip: Popstar Academy

If you, like me, nostalgically think back to the time when MTV really aired all the reality shows you had to see, then you understand that I sometimes feel an enormous urge out of nowhere to listen to the album by ‘Danity Kane’. Terrible songs when you hear them back now, but back then it was really fantastic and I was obsessed with the chicks in that band. After all, they were handpicked by Diddy himself. In hindsight, that's a bit of a creepy idea. But I just enjoyed watching them struggle with the choreography and singing off-key in the studio. Or Aubrey crying because everyone always thinks she's so beautiful, which she found very annoying.

My happiness knew no bounds when I saw that there is a similar series on Netflix recently. It's a bit of a mix between ‘Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders‘ (also a gem originally from MTV) and ‘Making the Band’: a group of about 100 girls has been selected to participate in a kind of training program to become a K-pop superstar girl group. What struck me right away about the people giving the lessons is that they themselves have to cry a lot about how special it is that the 100 girls get this chance. Probably because they themselves never managed to reach their goal of being in a girl group, they can now enjoy a bit through the girls of how life could have been. But that's not even the best part of this series. In twelve episodes, you see them grow into a real band. Some can dance incredibly well, others are bizarrely good singers, but there are also a few who are just very pretty. The Aubrey's of today, so to speak. Only I have the impression so far that they don't mind being called pretty as much anymore.

The joke is that there are also girls who really can't dance at all or sing extremely off-key, or just both. It really doesn't make any sense, and the fact that we haven't heard anything about the band ‘Katseye’ might say enough. But well, Danity Kane was also a bit of a one-hit wonder, and we enjoyed that a lot too.

Image: Netflix