Critic's Notebook

Rock Star: Supernova

Think about how many reality-TV-show marriages have ended in divorce — and then think about how many groups created in the artificial light of television (The Monkees, The New Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Archies, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, The Bugaloos, Cyanide, Josie...
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Think about how many reality-TV-show marriages have ended in divorce — and then think about how many groups created in the artificial light of television (The Monkees, The New Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Archies, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, The Bugaloos, Cyanide, Josie and the Pussycats) have similarly only lasted through the life of the show. Okay, so half of the above are cartoons, but so is Rock Star: Supernova, a caricature of what a mid-’90s rock band sounded like, given that the participants enjoyed their greatest individual successes before grunge and carry those powers over to this new outfit. Watching the show, viewers knew that Dilana was gonna be nixed, because no woman could be in a band in which the drummer may pull out a titty cam. So we’re stuck with Lukas Rossi, picked, presumably, because his gothish hair and makeup puts the demographic closer to the year 2000. The likable debut album comes off as a poppier Soundgarden, with Rossi’s vocalizing more Candlebox than Candy (Gilby Clarke’s power-pop band before joining Guns N’ Roses). But with even Jason Newsted out of the road lineup because of an injury, it’s hard to imagine any band with a colon in its name being more than a piece of punctuation in any of the participants’ careers.

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