Har Mar Superstar
Har Mar Superstar (Kill Rock Stars)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 2002

The main difference between Har Mar Superstar and *NSync is that Har Mar knows that he's kidding (although *NSync seem to be picking up on it pretty quickly). And *NSync has harmonies, and songs, and fans. Other than that, though, they're the same. Har Mar's just a little more fronky, a bedroom-studio nerd whose sheer Minneapolitan (Pauline, actually) whiteness threaten to keep him perpetually outside the Neptunes' door. Buck up, Har Mar; they don't come any whiter than ultra-Swede Max Martin, and look what he did for teen pop.

For the moment, what Har Mar's got is a knack for itty-bitty tunefulness, a sweet boy-band tenor, a penchant for kinda dumb lyrics that are laugh-once funny (the gag with the most legs is the non-sequitorial "I've even got love for Canada" in the everything's-gonna-be-all-right "Brand New Day"), two fingers of top 40-worthy musical ideas and no concept of how to tie it all together to create even one solid song (although the slam-funk groove of "Cry 4 Help" gets by on sheer drive alone). Even parodies need solid foundations; the reason that blur's "Girls & Boys" worked once was that it worked twice, if you get me. Once Har Mar gets a firm grip on pop-song structure, his lyric problems'll likely become invisible. Then we'll finally get a "Girl, You're Stupid" and "Baby, Do You Like My Clothes?" worthy of their titles.

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