Does anyone else find boy bands intellectually fascinating?

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For one thing, it's a poorly defined term, and like all poorly defined terms, I try very hard to come up with a good definition. How old/young must one be to be in a boy band? How much, or more usually, little creative autonomy must its members have to qualify? How polished and controlled do the boys in question have to be publicly? Somewhat arbitrarily, can they play instruments? Does every hit band involving young men in their teens and early twenties count as a "boy band", however uncontrolled and original?

Then, the demographics. I always thought the girls who liked boy bands were maybe 7-12 years old, but I have heard of girls in their mid-teens liking them!

What is the life of a boy band member like? Do they often think about the fact that they are essentially seducing 9-year olds? Former Disney Star and boy band member Joe Jonas described the grueling experience of... Having to shave every day. Am I missing something here? I suppose it depends on the band, but what is the relationship between the band members like? And is their chief aspiration to be in a boy band, or do they want to break out? I would have assumed the latter, but given the regrouping of a few leading to "man bands"... What is the true experience of a boy band member?

I would love to conduct, when I'm older, a study on this. I am, in case you were wondering, not a straightforward fan of any boy band, at 17. Although I've heard 1D attracted fans of all ages... What made them so appealing? How odd.

Is the Sex Pistols a boy band?

Also, 1D has at least one okay song.

Somehow, the terms "Boy Band" and "Intellectual" don't seem to go together at all.

:p Surely not the most intellectually rigorous topic I've come up with, but one requiring some level of complex thought nonetheless-- so long as you aren't simply listening to their music.

The only "Boy Bands" I've found worth listening to were the Beach Boys and those four lads from Liverpool.

Sorry CT15, but I guess you have to be a girl to really appreciate "Real Boy Band" music.

I suppose they could be fascinating from a sociological point of view and give an insight into the human psyche.

I thankfully outgrew boy bands years ago although I still like and respect the Osmonds.

But, see, what is a "real boy band"?

I like some 1D songs in a "oh, it's nice that this song is on the radio" way, not a "I'm listening to this on YouTube" way, and certainly not a "I'm buying this" way. :p I grew out of that phase like seven years ago, when I gave up on being "normal".

A boy band, or it's female equivalent 'girl group' (google it), is an all male or all female musical group trying to sell their product by placing particular emphasis on their looks and physical attractiveness rather than the quality of their music.

Girl group example:



While not necessary, their music is generally heavily processed and chemically engineered to appeal to an easy target demographic (e.g. boy bands use adult men to target young girls and women as fans).

The band members also tend to specifically tailor their physical appearance to suit their target demographic and what their target demographic may consider trendy, 'hip' and 'in-style'.

'Selling out' at its finest.

What makes an all male or all female group not a boy band/girl group is they may have a more diverse demographic and appeal to a wider range of people (e.g. Blink-182 makes music young teenagers, college aged adults and even some older adults can relate to as well or reminisce about their high school days with), music not entirely chemically engineered to appeal to a specific demographic, and not placing emphasis on their looks to attract sales.

This is what makes 5 seconds of summer (with their trendy modern aussie skater boy look and 'pretty boy' look designed to appeal to young girls and women and writing songs specifically targeted to attract them) a boy band and Blink 182 (who dress how they want (punk-skater look that hasn't been popular in over a decade), create what they want, and never tried to market specifically towards anyone and made music because they enjoyed it) not a boy band.

All famous musicians and bands tend to market towards a target audience to draw in more consumers, but doing it 'too much', that is every single release engineered to attract a specific audience and never making anything outside of that, I have a problem with.

Maybe the next hard part is figuring out how to define when a musician is appealing 'too much' to one target audience or even to figure out when a musician or band is doing this or not doing this.

No.

There are some people who swear high and low that 5sos is NOT a boy band.

I think, for the most part, yes, a boy band is a manufactured, glossy, group of young men appealing to young girls. Thing is, so long as the "boys" in question have some hand in writing the material themselves, it's often hard to tell if their songs are specifically geared towards little girls.

Stranger yet, I read a statistic that said 46% of 1D's fanbase was over 20, yet they are definitely a boy band, of the most manufactured variety.

Oddly, girl groups also tend to appeal to little girls, which is kinda sucky given that one girl group twerking all over the place in "Worth It"... :T

Honestly, the biggest gripe I have with them is that it's kind of weird that they're wooing little girls. Other than that, if it's what the public wants, generally the public grows out of it... Generally.

But they are a manufactured band (put together by the store Sex to advertise their products) with a large emphasis on fashion (punk fashion) and little musical talent (Sid Vicious literally could not play the bass until late in their career). Sex Pistols are totally a boy band.

They were not manufactured. Yes, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's stake in the band was in promoting Sex and their clothing. That was not why the band existed. Malcolm agreed to manage them after the band started, albeit in an embryonic form. He didn't form them, only managed and named them. They wrote the songs.

As for Sid, he replaced Glen, who wrote most of the music and some of the words. The band's first gig was November 1975 and Sid joined in January 1977. The rest of the band played well--just listen to some of the bootlegs with Glen or the "Anarchy" single to hear how tight they were. A great pop band, but not a boy band. Certainly their main producer Chris Thomas was impressed with them, and he mixed Dark Side of the Moon and was the only person besides George Martin to produce the Beatles.

They were told to write Sub Mission. You say they play pop; they're a boy band.

Malcolm wanted them to write about S&M, so they wrote about a submarine mission as a joke to offend him. I say they play pop because pop is short for popular music.

Just to note: Sid was the only member who wasn't a capable musician. Steve, Paul and Glen were all established, capable musicians. Sid played drums prior to Sex Pistols. Steve Jones was already a singer but had just started playing guitar when he joined the Sex Pistols. So basically, those were were new to their instruments but still already musicians.

They're a pre-fab pop band, but not a boy band. Boy bands/girl groups rely on romantic/sexual songs, generally appearing non-threatening and basically move product on the basis of inspiring crushes.

Also, while I can't stand boy band type music, I can see this being an intellectual topic to pick apart. Why does this 'crap' exist is almost always an interesting topic, no matter what the 'crap' in question is.

Last edited by funeralxempire on 05 Jul 2016, 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The late Nineties' Spice Girls started the whole thing, even though they were a girl group. The modern age of boy bands came in the wake of the Spice Girls. Fabricated invented groups targeted for a demographic of the early 21st Century (Backstreet, Nysync, Savage Garden, One Direction, Il Divo, etc).

But there was precedent in earlier decades.

The Beatles were... boys who formed a band, but they were not a "boy band".

But the "pre fab four" created to imitate the Fab Four for TV, the Monkees, was an early boy band.

But the first ever boy band even predated the Monkees. That was Alvin and the Chipmunks.