The Rise and Fall (and Rise…?) of Boyband’s

Again tying in with the muggle studies music homework...

The Rise and Fall (and Rise…?) of Boyband’s

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘boy band’ as:

a young all-male pop group; spec. such a group whose music and image are designed to appeal primarily to a teenage audience.

Dictionary.com defines ‘boy band’ as:

Main Entry: boy band
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a formulaically organized pop music group of good-looking young men who can sing and dance

Both of these definitions can be said to be true to the boy bands we have seen over the years. It is interesting to note some of the key words such as “formulaic”, “good-looking” and “teenage audience.”

However, this essay is primarily about the rise and fall of the boy band. There have been boy bands for a long time – it could even be argued that The Beatles were a boy band – they were male and in a band. However, the ‘formulaic’ type of boy band as defined above really only began to be seen in the 1980’s. The one that sticks in my mind are Wham – good-looking men, bouffant hair, perma-tan and cheesy songs – the perfect recipe for a boy band. But George Michael left after a few years of chart success to pursue his solo music career. This is perhaps the pattern that all boy bands follow, as we shall see.

The next boy band that I shall look at is perhaps the one that has had the most success in the United Kingdom: Take That. Robbie Williams, Jason Orange, Howard Donald, Gary Barlow and Mark Owen had a massive success in the early nineties with a string of hits such as “Relight my Fire”, “Pray”, “Back for Good” and “Never Forget”. However success soon turned sour when Robbie Williams left in 1996 and the band dissolved amid wails and cries of dismay from teenage girls across the land.

This boy band was dead. However, the most popular member, Robbie Williams went on to form a solo career, just like George Michael did with Wham. He is now one of England’s most popular male solo artists, regularly winning Brit awards and a massive concert at Knebworth in 2003, which was so popular, it caused major traffic jams as people tried to get there.

So from the ashes of Take That rose Robbie Williams, perhaps England’s most successful male solo artist. However, earlier this year, Take That reformed to perform a series of one off reunion gigs. They are now planning a new album of new songs. This is an example of a boy band that rose…that fell…and are now rising once again.

Another example of this is The Backstreet Boys. Beginning in the mid-90’s with hits such as “As Long as You Love Me”, “Larger Than Life”, “Everybody” and “I Want It That Way”. They were phenomenonally successful all over the world, but soon faded into obscurity like many of their predecessors. However, last year they made their comeback with the song “Incomplete”. Whilst this was moderately successful, it’s successor was barely recognised and they have, once again, faded from the public eye.

This seems to be the case with most boy bands – they all end up splitting up. Boyzone – immensely popular in the nineties, split up in the early noughties. East 17 – huge success, they split up. Another Level – moderate success, they split up. A1 had a couple of hits, they split up. Blue reached dizzying heights of fame and popularity, yet they split up. Perhaps the exception to the rule (though Merlin knows why!), are Westlife. They started in the late nineties, and are still going strong (minus one member). They are as popular amongst their fans today as they were eight or so years ago.

However, it has to be said, in this new music age of indie rock, R&B and rap styles of music – are boy band’s a dying species? Westlife are perhaps the only ‘typical’ boy band left in England, and *fingers crossed*, they too will soon be a thing of a past.

That was not only amusing, but very interesting - 50 points.