Boy Bands

The other night, they had Hanson as the musical guest on The Tonight Show.  My first reaction was... really?  These guys were popular when I was in fourth grade!  I honestly thought they'd gone out of the business years ago like all the other boy bands.  Turns out, after doing some research on Wikipedia the last few nights, I found that a lot of these bands were still active through much of the 2000's.  I remember hearing last year that the Backstreet Boys had released a new album, when I was under the impression that they had broken up in the early 2000's.  Nope, turns out that they're still performing, albeit minus Kevin Richardson.  N*Sync was still together until 2007, though they hadn't produced anything new since 2002.  And apparently, 98 Degrees hasn't officially broken up yet, either; they're just on an "extended hiatus".  And from the looks of it, a lot of the other boy bands from my middle school days were still active or lasted longer than I thought.  The only reason I hadn't heard much about them was because I had stopped following them when I got to high school. 

Of course, the concept of the boy band still exists today, just in a different form.  The Jonas Brothers are probably the most recognizable example of a modern boy band, though Wikipedia says that some groups like Simple Plan and Good Charlotte could technically also qualify as boy bands.  Unlike the boy bands of the early 00's, however, the members of these modern boy bands actually play their own instruments instead of just dancing around on stage. 

My post tonight will deal with boy bands as defined in the traditional sense, i.e., the ones from the late 90's / early 00's.  In particular, I'd like to address the question of why they seemed to fall out of popularity so quickly.  When I was in sixth grade, they seemed to be the "in" thing.  We used to listen to the radio in the morning before class started, and I remember the first time I brought in my recently purchased N*Sync CD, it got a pretty warm reception.  But within a couple months, I was met with groans and bullying whenever I tried to play it, and people even started questioning my sexuality.  When I asked why, I was told, "It's a girls' group." 

Now let me make this clear:  At no time in my life was I ever attracted to any member of N*Sync or any member of the other boy bands.  As I used to tell people, "I don't like N*Sync, I just like their music."  Not that it helped my image any.  But seriously, back in those days, I preferred any music that was suitable for dancing to.  Weird, I know, but that I can't see how that would make me gay or effeminate.  The only alternative in music back then was bands like Limp Bizkit or Slipknot, which I didn't really care for because I found their lyrics too vulgar for my taste.

But what I don't understand is why boy bands went from being popular with both genders to being something that only girls liked in such a short amount of time.  Were guys just jealous because they didn't have the sex appeal that Justin Timberlake or Nick Carter had?  Probably not.  The guys who made fun of me back then were mostly jocks anyway, and they had no problems attracting the opposite gender.  However, the fact that boy bands - and other pop artists, for that matter - were so popular among the female population was probably a significant factor.  It may have also had something to do with the fact that rock bands actually played musical instruments - they could be judged on actual musical talent rather than choreography and theatrics. 

These days, my tastes in music are still different from the norm, but much more diversified.  I'm mainly into contemporary rock bands such as Nickelback, Daughtry, and Barenaked Ladies, but I still enjoy anything with a good dance beat.  I still have my N*Sync CD hidden somewhere in my room (though I haven't played it in almost ten years); I have more songs by Rihanna and Lady Gaga on my iPod than the average American male; and at karaoke parties, I've been known to sing such songs as "Bye Bye Bye", "Livin' La Vida Loca", and even "Baby One More Time", just for laughs.  The difference nowadays is that people are much more tolerant of my tastes in music - or at least they've been kind enough to not say anything to my face.  Maybe that's why people made fun of me back in middle school - we were all just young and immature back then, but as we grew up, we gradually discarded most of the stereotypes that we had when we were younger. 

B-)