Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam is a must-watch for all '90s pop superfans

Back in the mid to late '90s, most of us probably had posters in our childhood bedrooms of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. We heard their music on the radio and watched their music videos on MTV. We might even know pieces of the behind-the-scenes turmoil each boy band endured with their shared manager Lou Pearlman, but Netflix's docuseries Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam tells the full story.

Cleverly borrowing a line from *NSYNC's hit 2001 single "Pop," the three-part documentary series traces Pearlman's history as a businessman with his alleged airplane company Trans Continental. He later parlayed his supposed business success into the music industry, inspired by the financial possibilities at stake with New Kids on the Block prototypes. Soon, Pearlman's secret Ponzi scheme spiraled out of control.

Before diving into Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam, you might be wondering if this is a true crime documentary series worth watching and if it adds any new details to what's already been told about this story. While it's not a documentary series about Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, superfans of these boy bands and this era of pop music will definitely be stunned to learn what happened behind the music, especially if you've never heard this story before.

A gripping and shocking docuseries

Over the years, Lou Pearlman's various crimes have made headlines, but it's very possible that some music fans might have missed the story completely, especially some of the more minute details. If you grew up as fans of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, it's likely that you're familiar with both groups splitting from Pearlman early in their careers with lawsuits over millions missing from their paychecks.

But it's even deeper than stealing money from two of his most successful boy bands. Pearlman was using the boy bands as an incentive for investors to give Trans Continental money. Over the course of his long-running Ponzi scheme, Pearlman conned thousands of people out of hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly even more than that as the docuseries reveals.

As a millennial who grew up with limited knowledge of Pearlman's role in creating and conning two of the biggest boy bands of the '90s, discovering the full extent of his crimes and learning that they continued with groups like O-Town and Natural, was personally disturbing. Dirty Pop leaves no stone unturned across three episodes and showcases multiple testimonies close to the story.

Lou Pearlman went to prison in 2007 and passed away in 2016

Although Pearlman attempted to run and hide from his mounting debts and fraud allegations, he was ultimately arrested in June 2007 when he was found in Indonesia. During that time, he was still trying to supposedly start a business with Natural member Michael Johnson and land more investments. In May 2008, Pearlman received a 25-year prison sentence for conspiracy, money laundering, and other charges. At the time of his sentencing, he was 54 years old.

While serving his sentence, Pearlman suffered a stroke in 2010, and in 2016, he underwent surgery to replace a heart valve. Ultimately, Pearlman died from cardiac arrest at the age of 62 on Aug. 29, 2016, nine years into his sentence. It marked an ending to the con artist's long history of hurting others for financial gain, and his death left many unsure how to feel, as expressed in Dirty Pop.

However, one of the strangest aspects of Dirty Pop happens to be a digitally rendered version of Lou Pearlman reading passages from his 2003 book Bands, Brands, and Billions. Even though he was a conman, fraudster, forger, and all-around criminal, using AI to depict him feels a bit unethical and sets a slightly scary precedent for true crime documentaries. But for the story itself, Dirty Pop is worth the watch to gain the knowledge of one of the most horrifying and almost unbelievable scams in history.

Watch Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam on Netflix.