Hit Me Baby One More Time is another summer season show which brings five one-hit wonder bands together for, well... the chance to humiliate themselves one last time in front of a live audience. Just a sampling of amazing talent that has been gathered thus far -- Vanilla Ice, Tiffany, Loverboy, Arrested Development, Flock of Seagulls, and Haddaway. It's like watching an Emmy Awards telecast that for some reason could only celebrate achievements from the television show, Small Wonder (and best actress pretending to be a robot goes to... surprise, surprise, that little girl who plays Vicki the robot!) -- not entirely satisfying, but yet mesmerizing in a weird way.
Each performer gets to hop on stage twice per show -- once to sing the song they were most famous for, the second time to cover a song that's currently tearing up the charts. The first performance is definitely the lesser of the two. It's a bit sad seeing all of the artists strain to try and sing the songs they recorded 15-20 years ago. Many did not fare well, as time has done a Boston Rob from Survivor on their vocal chords, and betrayed them at every turn.
The second song is where it gets interesting. Some, like Haddaway, try to do a faithful rendition of a current song (in this case, Britney's "Toxic") and fail so miserably that it's a distinct pleasure to watch. Others, like Arrested Development, take a song and reinvent it to fit their group's style. AD's version of "Heaven" actually comes out better than the original, which makes you wonder, what the hell happened to our love for them? Did we just decide after "Mr. Wendell" played for the 1,232 time that we'd turn our backs on these folks? Weird.
The one performance that confused me the most was Vanilla Ice covering Destiny's Child's "Survivor." The performance itself was pretty straightforward, but the lax rules around what qualifies as a cover disappointed me. The only word that the two songs had in common was "survivor." That's it. The beat? Totally different. The chorus? Not even close. The verses? Please. Call me old fashioned, but when you cover a song, it's gotta share at least a faint resemblance to the song. I'm not asking for a Mary Kate and Ashley type resemblance, but at least give me Alec and Steven Baldwin. Is that too much to ask?
In any case, Hit Me Baby One More Time is definitely a trip down memory lane. An exciting and amazing trip? Well, no. But there's some solid moments. Enough to allow me to reserve a party of two and a half for HMBOMT. 2.5 Salingers on the Salinger scale, where a Party of Five is the highest rating. There's been two episode aired on NBC so far, and the third one tonight is supposedly the last one of the summer. Don't worry, however, you can still catch reruns of any of these shows on NBC's cable station, Bravo. Word to your mutha (as Vanilla would say).
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