Boy Bands: (What were we thinking?)

Long before Justin Bieber (and consequently, the hordes of screaming twelve year old girls with ‘Bieber Fever’) and Big Time Rush, there were other make idols of pop music: The Backstreet Boys and N*snyc.

 I may be speaking for myself here, but I, as a child, really, really like N*sync (pronounced in-sync, and it was the band Justin Timberlake was a part of before he went solo) and the other boy bands of the time – what can I say, I was a sheep. A slave to the communal thoughts of my age group, if you will. However, I look back and ask: why? At best, the boy-band trend produced cookie cutter music, over the top choreography, and a bias towards pretty men. (That last one might just be me.) At worst, they were mass-marketed and totally artificial, and most likely bad for you – like a box of Twinkies in human form. Only, instead of getting diabetes and gaining a few pounds, you bought into the consumerism they vomited, and annoyed your parents until they bought you the lunchbox, sweatbands, tee-shirts and concert tickets.

Now, before I go any farther, I feel I should give you a working definition of the term “boy band”. It is, as the moniker suggests, a group (usually from three to six members) of male musicians, usually in their late teens to mid-twenties who are do not, usually, play instruments of any kind, and all have a generic sort of attractiveness to them. Most casual observers will only be able to name one or two of the members, while others are completely forgotten (like Howie from the Backstreet Boys – poor, poor Howie). The music the bands produced is generally defined as “pop” or maybe a very light sort of hip hop/ R&B. They were popular throughout the 90s, and very few (verging on none) of the group maintained their fanbase throughout the turn of the century.  Now, as for the lay out of the rest of this article: I will touch on both N*sync and the Backstreet Boys (BSB) who were the main bands that I listen to, when they were popular..

So, N*sync. Made up of JC, Justin, Lance, Joey and Chris—because surnames weren’t particularly important to fans, they won’t be important here. They were active from 1995-2002, and though I had all of their CDs, I couldn’t tell you all of their names, though each fan had their favourite. To me, they worked well together in a group, and their music, at least, had a bit of diversity to it as time went on. For example, compare their first single, “I Want You Back,” a whiney, poppy, soulful  ballad to the more recent “Pop” single, which was faster, sharper, and had more than a touch of R&B – also, it featured Justin Timberlake’s vocals more, a sharp contrast to the earlier works wherein all the members had more-or-less the same amount of airtime. The group went on hiatus in 2002 and by 2007 the bad had broken up.

To contrast, The Backstreet Boys (active from 1993 –present ((apparently))) are still going strong, even if most of their original fanbase (and me) has grown up and moved on, and to my knowledge, they haven't released a music video since 2005. I would hope that their general musical genre has changed along with the members, because from what I can remember, every single one of their songs sounded the same – the same subject matter (love, women, themselves) to the general presentation (So. Much. Choreography – or “we’re-so-deep” meaning), to the song styling: catchy, or ‘mournful’, pop/dance or ‘soulful ballads’, one or the other.

So, boy bands. They tended to be polarizing – you loved them or you hated them, but they were absolutely huge in the 90s that you had to admit. And while I wouldn’t go as far as for anyone to actively listen to the old tunes (because they are cookie cutter, make no mistake) if you’re feeling nostalgic, what’s the harm into listening to just one?