Boy band
A boy band is a vocal group consisting of young male singers, usually in their teenage years or in their twenties at the time of formation.
The term boy band was not established until the late 1980s when Lou Pearlman decided to form a record company to promote a new singing and dancing group after becoming fascinated with the success of New Kids on the Block.
[5] The Beatles did, however, inspire the production of the 1966 television series The Monkees,[7] which featured a music group of the same name, created for the show, that consisted of the four starring actors.
[citation needed] Also a sibling group, The Osmonds first started singing barbershop music for local audiences, before being hired to perform at Disneyland early in their career.
Boston group New Edition was formed in 1978 and reached their height of popularity in the 1980s, meaning they are often credited for starting the boy-band trend, even though the term "boy band" did not exist until the 1990s.
[9] With the success of North American boy bands like New Kids on the Block in East Asia, Japanese entertainment company Johnny & Associates formed SMAP in 1992.
[10] In 1992, after the disbandment of the heavy metal band Sinawe, in which he had a brief stint, Seo Taiji formed the boy band Seo Taiji and Boys (Korean: 서태지와 아이들) together with dancers Lee Juno and Yang Hyun-suk, which went on to become highly successful and created a craze at the time.
In 1995 the Korean Broadband is not 6 ft to a particular location casting Ethics Committee demanded that Seo Taiji and Boys change the lyrics for "Regret of the Times".
This autonomy allowed Seo to bring subcultures in Korea, such as heavy metal, to the forefront of popular culture and challenge pervasive social norms.
The band's independent success diminished the power of the television networks to dictate which artists appeared on shows, and gave rise to the influence of record labels and talent agencies.
[14] In 2017, Seo Taiji released a 25th Anniversary album with his greatest hits and remakes by prominent Korean artists, including the group BTS.
He also held a joint celebratory concert with the latter, in which he acknowledged them as his spiritual successors in K-pop due to the socially conscious thematic similarities in their music as well their shared hip hop leanings, and metaphorically passed the torch, saying "This is your generation now".
Westlife was created by Irishman Louis Walsh as a replacement for Boyzone[17] and was initially managed by a former member of the band Ronan Keating.
[18][19][20] Even though Cowell is known to have managed several successful boy bands, he is also infamous for passing on signing two of the biggest boybands to emerge from the 1990s and 2000s, Take That and Busted.
[21] With the continued success of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, American and British groups like 98 Degrees, Westlife, O-Town, A1, Blue, and Busted gained quick popularity both domestically and internationally.
[22] In 2001, Taiwanese boy band F4 (called JVKV since 2007)[23] blew up big as a result of the success of their TV drama Meteor Garden.
In South Korea, Shinhwa also spread hallyu wave throughout Asia such as Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
Also in 2001, a new all-male pop band and dance group boyband hailing from Japan called Exile debuted under Avex Group's label Rhythm Zone with 14 members, putting them on par with Super Junior, a South Korean boy band, who at the time, had had 13 members at its peak.
[31] NKOTBSB's success inspired boy bands who were fairly popular during the 1990s and 2000s to make a comeback, such as A1, Blue, 98 Degrees, Five, 911, and O-Town.
[57] In Norway, the boy band Ballinciaga gained commercial success in 2022 with dance and party songs like "Dans På Bordet" and "Beklager (Guttaklubben)".
Typically, each member of the group will have some distinguishing feature and be portrayed as having a particular personality stereotype, such as "the baby", "the bad boy", or "the shy one".
In K-pop, officially designated positions within the group are common, such as "leader", "maknae" (Korean: 막내, English: "the youngest"), "visual", "center" "vocalist", "rapper" and "dancer".
In recent years, auto-tune has become a popular tool in vocal producing, some boy bands have come under fire for that reason.
[62] A typical boy band performance features elaborately choreographed dancing, with the members taking turns singing and/or rapping.
Boy bands generally do not compose or produce their own material, unless the members lobby hard enough for creative control.
At the close of the nineties, groups like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC who had previously used writers like Max Martin during their early albums began writing their own songs.
[68] Individuals can also go on to achieve greater success as a solo artist coming out of a boy band having used the groups popularity to build on.
In K-pop, it is expected and common practice for members to embark on solo endeavors as musical artists or in other entertainment sectors, such as acting, or as variety personalities, alongside their group career after a few years.
At the latest, this happens around the time the eldest member reaches the age of 28 (in exceptional cases 30) and is drafted for mandatory military service, forcing the group into a temporary hiatus of at least 18 months.
Il Divo, created by Simon Cowell in 2004, are a vocal group that performs operatic pop in several (mainly Italian) languages.
