One of the Roads to Boy Bands

Every person has her or his own entry into the world of boy and girl bands.  It could be your older sibling, your friends, or some random video on the internet that gets you hooked, but there must have been something that started it if you find yourself neck-deep in fandom one day.  Here is the story of this writer’s journey to boy bands.  It is twisty and perilous, and starts at not the most expected of places.

The False Start

I suppose I should have gotten into boy bands when my older sister fell hard for the triple hit combo of The Backstreet Boys, N’SYNC and 98 Degrees back when she was in high school.  I certainly heard their music on the radio enough and her entire room was papered with posters and pages of magazines.  One I remember in particular was of shirtless 98 Degrees dressed as firemen… but I digress.  (Of course, I don’t think I can be blamed for that. —>)

Muckrakers… They Are Not; Online Tabloids Are Just Muck

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Idol Appearances Are Deceiving

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When I first started learning about the South Korean idol scene back in 2011 or so, I noticed quite a few unique traits about that particular sector of the world’s entertainment industry.  Every place is bound to have its peculiarities and you just have to learn and adjust to them, but one thing that particularly caught my attention was the strange way South Korean celebrities have of discussing things that would be considered taboo elsewhere- things such as weight, ugliness, and plastic surgery.  To be fair, there’s still politeness of a sort involved, it’s just discussed using different societal rules.

(+ > -) :How the Internet Positively Affects Fans

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Last week we did our best to list some of the ways that the internet age has affected how fans perceive their boy band and girl band idols, but when we got to the end, we realized that everything we went over sounded rather negative.  That’s not fair!  There’s always a good side to every bad, a silver lining to every cloud, and we think the positives deserve an equal airing, so here we go.

Through the Looking Screen: How Internet Affects Fan Perceptions

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The internet can be an extremely useful thing for a musical group.  Just ask Justin Bieber, who was first discovered on YouTube, One Direction, who gained a massive international following with little promotion due to Twitter and Tumblr, or any of the South Korean groups like Girls Generation or DBSK, who have fans in places like the U.S. and South America solely because of internet exposure.  As a marketing tool, the internet is extremely powerful, although it’s more of a wild horse than a trained jumper.

Going Solo: What It Means To Be In a Group

Being in a group has its perks- less pressure, more fun, you never get bored- but there are times when one member might want to venture out on his or her own for awhile.  The musical style of one member of a group can differ from his or her groupmates or from the genre ascribed to the group as a whole.  Sometimes the musical style isn’t the point of contention, but the amount of time a singer gets when parts are split up multiple ways.  Sadly, there are also times where a member isn’t gelling as well with the group or with the pop star lifestyle as they once used to.

Cult of Personality

It’s Not JUST the Music

Many detractors of girl and boy bands like to hit out at the music.  “How can you listen to that stuff?”, “That’s so generic”,  and “They don’t even write any of it themselves”, are often heard complaints.  With some groups these are valid statements, so how is it that they still have humongous armies of fans ready to get sassy in their defense at a moment’s notice?

Exhaustive and Exhausting List of Girl Bands

Bear with us, this is a page in progress.  Girl bands are serious business you know, and we’ve got to get this right!

American girls:

Andrews Sisters (25-51, 56-67)
The Supremes (59-77)
The Pointer Sisters (69-present)
Josie and the Pussycats (70-71)

Exhaustive and Exhausting List of Boy Bands

Bear with us, this is a page in progress.  Boy bands are serious business you know, and we’ve got to get this right!

American boys:
The Osmonds (58-present?)
The Temptations (60-present?)
The Jackson 5 (64-89, 01)
The Monkees (66-71, 86-89, 93-97, 01-02, 10-present)

The Beatles: Boy Band or Not?

Bear with us.  This work is under revision because the author thinks there is a much better set of criteria to use for categorizing a group as a girl band or boy band.

Created using http://www.wordle.net/

In the illustrious arena of music, one genre of performer strikes fear into the hearts of some, makes others swoon in delight, and causes yet others to get so frustrated they resort to the equivalent of stamping their feet and crossing their arms while pouting.  Yes, indeed, these performers are the groups known as girl bands and boy bands.