In pop or R&B a boy band is a group of several young male singers. The members are generally expected to perform as dancers as well, often executing highly choreographed sequences to their own music. More often than not, boy band members do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on stage, and only sing and dance. As a result, the term "band" is really a misnomer for this genre. Although there are no distinct traits defining a boy band, one could label a band a "boy band" for following mainstream music trends, changing their appearances to adapt to new fashion trends, having elaborate dance moves, and performing elaborate shows. They can evolve out of church choral or Gospel music groups, but are often put together by talent managers or record producers who audition the groups for appearance, dancing, rapping skills, and singing ability.

The acts are essentially vocal harmony groups, not "bands" as such, though there are some exceptions. Due to this and their general commercial orientation towards preteens, teenyboppers, or teens audiences, the term may be used with negative connotations in music journalism. Boy bands are similar in concept to girl groups.

History

Pre-history and prototypes

The earliest predecessors of the boy band genre were groups such as the The Osmonds, The Jackson 5, and The Monkees, which helped form the template for boy bands. While The Monkees were a manufactured act who featured members with distinct (albeit fictional) personality types, The Jackson 5 were a family group that established many musical conventions that boy bands follow. For instance, their music featured close harmonies from soul music and catchy pop hooks influenced as much as they were Motown acts like The Supremes. All members of the band sang, which is a common convention of boy band, as opposed to having a front man and the rest on instruments. This is effectively so that no one person dominated the stage. Even so, the members conveniently fitted into the convention of having stereotypical personality types (Michael Jackson being the "cute one", to give an obvious example).

Although not a manufactured band, The Beatles set a precedent for boy bands to follow both in terms of marketing to young girls and certain aesthetic and musical conventions. The merchandising, whether it was films like A Hard Day's Night or novelty goods were possibly the first aimed at a certain demographic on a large scale for a group. This effectively makes them a catalyst for proto-boy bands, such as The Jackson 5 and The Monkees. Musical conventions that boy bands adopted from The Beatles were less their technical proficiency as musicians and more the catchy pop hooks, melodies and harmonies combined with their marketability. Their marketability was based the idea that there was something for everyone, whether it is the music or the personality of John Lennon or Paul McCartney or their sex appeal.

The Beatles were more directly an influence on boy bands that use rock band instrumentation, such as the Jonas Brothers and other boy bands that play power pop. The precedent for this was when TV Producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson got four members to perform catchy pop tunes while also acting in a television series. The Monkees are often considered as the original pioneers among boy bands. Formed in 1965 under the supervision of Don Kirshner, the group became dissatisfied with Kirshner's control and became independent two years later, and worked on their own up to 1970.

Although the term "boy band" is mostly associated with groups from the 1990s onwards, other antecedents (apart from those already mentioned) exist throughout the history of pop music. The Temptations, popular in the 1960s, The Bee Gees, The Osmonds, and Earth, Wind and Fire, popular in the 1970s, have also been considered a form of boy band by some. The genre has been copied into languages and cultures other than the Anglo-American. There is a popular Russian boy band Ivanushki International. The Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, appealing to young Latina audiences, was founded in 1977.

Post-1980's

Although the word "boy band" did not exist until the 1990s, Boston group New Edition is credited for starting the boy band trend in the 1980s. Maurice Starr was influenced by New Edition and popularised it with his protégé New Kids on the Block, the first commercially successful modern boy band. Starr's idea was to take the traditional template from the R&B genre (in this case his teenage band New Edition) and apply it to a pop genre. Some managers in Europe created their own acts, beginning with Nigel Martin-Smith's Take That in the UK, followed by Louis Walsh and bands like East 17, which by the late 1990s ran their course and split up. With the emergence of britpop and the commercial co-option of indie rock, many boy bands were ridiculed by the British music press as having no artistic credibility.

One of the most successful boy band managers was Lou Pearlman, who founded commercially successful acts such as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, although he was later convicted of unrelated fraud incidents. In the UK, producer Simon Cowell (noted in the U.S. for the American Idol/Pop Idol franchise) is also known for having managed boyband Westlife, which was created by Louis Walsh and promoted by a former boy band member Ronan Keating of Boyzone.

Since 2001, the dominance of traditional boy bands on pop charts began to fade, although Gil Kaufman of MTV has described "new boy bands" that are "more likely to resemble Good Charlotte, Simple Plan or Dashboard Confessional".

Music genres

Although most boy bands consist of R&B or pop influences, other music genres, most notably country music and folk music, are also represented. South 65 and Marshall Dyllon, for example, were both considered country music boy bands, as was to a lesser extent Rascal Flatts. Il Divo, created by Simon Cowell, are a boy band that perform Operatic pop. Since 2001 there has been some crossover with power pop and pop punk from bands that play live instruments. For example, as of 2008, boy bands are often influenced by pop punk, 1960's garage rock, post punk revivalists, power pop (a perennial genre) and dance-punk .

Criticism

Since the 1990s, bands such as Backstreet Boys and Lyte Funky Ones have disliked the term "boy band" and have preferred to be known as a "Male Vocal Group". Boy bands have been accused by the music press of emphasizing the appearance and marketing of the group above the quality of music. Other criticisms include deliberately trying to appeal to a pre-teen audience, lacking originality in the music and being effeminate. Such criticisms can become extremely scathing:

In popular culture

As a result of these criticisms, boy bands have sometimes been a target for parody in popular culture:

• The television series 2ge+her involved the creation of a parody boy band with five personality types.

• "BoyBand the Musical" opened in London's West End in May 1999. Written by Peter Quilter it has also had productions in the Netherlands, South Africa and Poland.

• In a week-long spoof in 1999, wherein talk show host Conan O'Brien, inspired by Making the Band, created his own boy band called Dudez-A-Plenti, after randomly selecting five singers, narrowed down from the population of the entire world. A series of sketches culminated in a performance of a song O'Brien apparently made up himself: "Baby, I Wish You Were My Baby".

• Chambers Dictionary, which is known to contain humorous definitions, defines a boy band "a pop group, targeting mainly the teenage market, composed of young males chosen because they look good and can dance and sometimes even sing."

• The Norwegian movie Get Ready to be Boyzvoiced is a boyband mockumentary.

• In the South Park episode Something You Can Do with Your Finger, Cartman formed a boy band named Fingerbang.

• The 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats featured a fictional boy band named "Du Jour." Their hit single, "Backdoor Lover," satirizes the effeminate style of many boy bands and their members.

• In The Simpsons episode New Kids on the Blecch, Bart is recruited for a boy band that is secretly a vehicle for subliminal navy recruitment messages. The members of 'N Sync cameoed in the episode as themselves. Members of another Lou Pearlman-backed band, Natural, did provide most of the group's singing voices. (Marc Terenzi did Nelson while Michael 'J' Horn did Milhouse.)

• On the Veggie Tales videos The Ballad of Little Joe and Moe and the Big Exit, Larry, Mr. Lunt, Jimmy, and Junior do a parody of a boy band video for the two Boyz in the Sink songs "Bellybutton" and "A Mess Down in Egypt."

• The Blink-182 music video for "All The Small Things" is a parody of boy bands and other pop stars, most prominently, the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" music video.

• The off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz is about a fictitious Christian boy band from Ohio.

• The Australian musical "Boyband" centres around a fictional boyband 4orce and their journey through the 1990s. Two seasons were staged at The Seymour Centre in 2005 and 2006.

• Australian film BoyTown is about a fictional boyband who had their golden age in the 1980s, and reform to sing songs about divorce and picking the kids up from school and to go on one last tour.

• New Zealand radio station The Edge created a cliché boyband, called Boyband in 2006. It consisted of Fat Boy, Gay Boy, Mummy's Boy, Bad Boy and Hot Boy. They achieved a small success in the country, with their cover of The Kinks' song "You Really Got Me" reaching number one on the New Zealand music charts for one week.

• The Arrogant Worms made a parody song called "Boy Band" which includes lyrics such as "Cause we're singing in a boy band, the words are stupid and the music's bland".

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• The song "Title of the Song" by comedic a cappella band Da Vinci's Notebook provides a line-by-line dissection of the themes commonly found in boy band songs. (Example lyrics: "Acknowledgment that I acted foolishly / Increasingly desperate pleas for your return / Sorrow for my infidelity / Vain hope that my sins are forgivable / Appeal for one more opportunity / Drop to my knees to elicit crowd response / Prayers to my chosen deity / Modulation and I hold a high note")

Top selling pop music boy bands

Top selling R&B music boy bands

Best-selling boy band albums