The Return of the Boy Band?!

With the announcement that the Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block are teaming up to go on tour in 2011 as a sort of “Expendables” in boy band world, it got me thinking:  Is the trend of crazy boy band fandom back? Did it ever go away?

According to Wikipedia:

“A boy band (or boyband), in pop, rock, hip hop and R&B music, is loosely defined as a popular music act consisting of about 3-6 male performers. Despite the term "band", boy band members usually do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on stage, although exceptions do exist.

Some such bands can evolve out of church choral or Gospel music groups, but are often created by talent managers or record producers who hold auditions. Due to this and their general commercial orientation towards an audience of preteens, teenyboppers, or teens, the term may be used with negative connotations in music journalism.”

My name is Alli and I love boy bands.

You probably know how boy bands go by now, but if not I’ll refresh your memory.  There is typically one band who works their butt off to break into popularity.  It usually takes years and then BAM, girls everywhere are obsessed with them and boys start dressing like them. Then another boy band surfaces and fans need to choose sides.  Boy band A or boy band B.  Then a trillion other boy bands suddenly pop up and the market is infiltrated.  News breaks that boy band A, although they have been touring like crazy and selling millions of albums, are broke because their management took advantage of them.  Eventually a member of each boy band decide to go solo and the winner means the members of their respective boy bands are out of a job.

Then word came that the Spice Girls are doing a reunion tour and the frenzy starts again as New Kids on the Block decide to jump on the reunion band wagon (thank the heavens).  Suddenly teenie boppers of the past who have grown up, gotten married, have kids and grown up jobs are thrown right back into their boy band passionate ways (or, as some would say, obsession). Nothing is stranger and yet more refreshing than a stadium full of grown up women who still scream as loud as they did as a pre-pubescent at the site of Jordan Knight’s shirt blowing in the wind.   And then you wonder why NKOTB ever disappeared.  Did the fans really stop caring or did we just think they did? By the looks of the ticket sales and full stadiums, it never went anywhere.

Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake is a huge selling solo artist, *NSync is no more and the Backstreet Boys and Hanson continue to release albums and tour around the world each year.  Do people not care about Hanson or BSB anymore? Would they sell more tickets if their tours were tagged as a “reunion tour”? Maybe the thought of it being a “last chance” experience is what drives the frenzy into an upswing.

Jonas Brothers were huge just last summer, and now they are suffering to solo artist Justin Bieber.  The Biebs, as expected, is getting competition from the likes of Cody Simpson and many more cute boys with soft hair that are sure to come out of the wood work.

In my opinion, there is always a market for boy bands and there will always be enough die hard fans to keep them around.  We just need to realize that the extreme frenzy experienced in any cute boys’ singing career can’t last forever.  Girls grow up. But I have no doubt if given the choice between their husband and their ultimate boy band crush, they’d always choose Joey Mac.

 

p.s. Hit me up on twitter  @hmvdigitalCA