Boy Band Meets World: A Retrospective (Part 1)

Preamble 1:

When thinking of the most divisive figures in popular culture, it’s pretty easy to generate a list of usual suspects. Take Kanye West, for example; some argue that he’s a mad genius, while others may claim he is simply a raging asshole. Similarly, depending on who you ask, Lady Gaga is either a brilliant Warholian performance artist or a semi-talented attention whore. But there’s one name that doesn’t pop up frequently when discussing controversial public figures, even though he personifies the “love’em or hate’em” dichotomy. I’m talking about Justin Beiber, the pop moppet alternatively worshipped by some as a helmet-haired deity and derided by others as some sort of musical Antichrist. What’s most interesting about Beiber’s public reception is the clear demographic split between his admirers and his detractors. Every preteen girl in the Western Hemisphere dreams of innocently holding hands with the Beebs, while nearly all adults – and especially adult males – bristle at his very existence. All across the Internet, hate spews for Beiber like a geyser. I have to admit, I don’t understand this reaction. Firstly, I acknowledge that I’m not part of his target audience; I’m not still waiting to have my first period. It’s music for babies, and as such, I don’t let it bother me too much. Secondly, his musical output can be avoided with relative ease, even among hardcore pop radio listeners. When I commuted to work, I listened to probably 5 hours of pop radio per week, and I’ve heard, at a maximum, 3 of his songs. In comparison, I’ve heard roughly 80% of everything Jason Derulo has ever recorded, which mostly all sounds to me like a toilet flushing. Finally, what I have heard from Beiber is pretty inoffensive, even by the lenient standards of pop music. For example, I’d take any given Beiber song over Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight”; of course, I’d rather have Beiber personally crush my trachea with a tire iron than listen to Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight”. While I find the Beiber hatred vastly overblown among adults, there is one population that I think has a legitimate beef with him: regular preteen boys, who must hopelessly compete against Beiber for the affections of their female classmates. I can sympathize with them, because I lived this reality during my middle school years. You see, I came of age during the Boy Band Era. 

Preamble 2:

The late 1990s was probably the last time it felt good to be an American, and quite possibly the last time it felt good to be alive. We were living in the days of a financial surplus, and it seemed like the good times were going to last forever. Back then, our biggest political concern was the exact duration and location of a presidential hummer. The music industry’s fortunes mirrored those of the country at large. Consumers were getting ripped off for 20 dollars per compact disc, and we were thankful for the privilege. Even the most minimal radio exposure basically guaranteed an artist at least Gold status; future has-beens like Semisonic and Eagle Eye Cherry both went multi-Platinum based on one song, for Christ’s sake. To provide some context as to how sales then relate to sales now, one hit wonders OMC (of “How Bizarre” fame) allegedly sold around 4 million albums, approximately 3 million more copies than massive superstar Ke$ha’s debut album. And just like the United States, the recording industry was oblivious to its own fiscal and existential ruin that lay ominously just beyond the horizon. Napster was the music industry’s very own version of Al Qaeda, and their efforts at combating it were even more disastrous than waging two legally dubious, extravagantly expensive wars (for example). The Boy Band Era, then, was the music industry’s Caligulan peak, the last hurrah before the fall of Rome. 

At the time, I was disgusted by the preponderance of boy bands dominating the airwaves. They seemed to spread like a virus, with new acts popping up with every turn of the radio dial. Each new group was met with a wave of swooning by my female classmates, who seemed unaware of or unimpressed with my budding romantic interest in them. Now that I am older, it’s not hard for me to see that my perception of these groups may have been colored by external forces such as those described above. In these apocalyptic days of terrorism, economic depression, and actual maniacs running for public office, reflecting on the recent past offers a pleasant respite from the horrors of contemporary life.  Join me, won’t you, as I take a tour of boy bands past, and determine which ones were deserving of my scorn, and which ones were simply victims of my jealous, irrational hatred. 

The Contenders:

5ive

I have to confess that, before researching this column, I’m not sure I knew 5ive existed. Even though I’d heard “When the Lights Go Out” more than my own name, I don’t think I had ever known it was performed by 5ive; I’ve assumed for years that it was a Backstreet Boys or N*Sync song. Also, I can’t describe how annoying it is typing 5ive over and over again. The most idiotic aspect about it is that, unlike other mid-word numerical replacements (such as Se7en), the number does bear even the slightest resemblance to what it is substituting. Every time I see it, I want to pronounce their name “Sieve”. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there. Despite the fact that I’ve only just become aware that 5ive was, in fact, a band and not merely a mathematical construct, I have to say that “When the Lights Go Out” ain’t bad. It’s definitely the type of song you can get your swerve on to during a Sadie Hawkins dance. In looking over their Wikipedia page, I don’t recognize any of their other singles, so I must tip my hat to 5ive: you’re batting a thousand in the Punchmaster’s ledger.

Dream Street

I don’t know one Dream Street song, and I’m wagering you don’t either. The only reason I bring them up is because of the highly disturbing subtext behind the group. When I was in middle school, it was common to hurdle homophobic slurs toward various and sundry boy bands. This was partially due to the fact we were all threatened by the band’s sexual hold over the objects of our desires, and partially due to the fact that kids are stupid assholes. Of course, I never actually believed boy bands were staffed exclusively by homosexuals, since they were getting more gash than something that gets a whole lot of gash. Dream Street, on the other hand, was the one boy band that seemed equally aimed toward young girls and aging pedophiles. The group was comprised of five very young (as in preteen) boys, and I only knew of them due to a late-night commercial advertising their debut album. Even as a middle schooler, I found this approach vaguely unsavory. Have you ever met anyone under the age of 40 who has ordered something off television, especially back in the late 90s? I had the same uncomfortable feeling after viewing the commercial as I would after being offered candy by a portly stranger in a van. Evidently, the members’ tenure was not as harmful as I imagined; former member Jesse McCartney has gone on to be one of the few post-boy band successes. While he may have escaped Dream Street unscathed, I still regard their late-night infomercial as the stuff of nightmares. 

98 Degrees             

Speaking of post-boy band successes, it seems that Nick Lachey’s time as a boy band idol is becoming a footnote in his career, his claim to fame having been usurped by reality TV. There’s a pretty good reason for this; even though they sold a career 10 million albums, 98 Degrees was the definition of a bland, uninteresting boy band. Even their name was mind numbingly generic – nothing gets the blood pumping faster than the thought of the average internal temperature of the human body. Their singles leaned toward the ballad-y, and even their more high-energy songs like “Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche)” are the type of things that would be played during a particularly lively bingo game at your local nursing home. As with Lachey, 98 Degrees’ legacy lies with reality programming; “The Hardest Thing” has become one of the go-to tunes for the elimination montages of dreck like America’s Got Talent. In retrospect, my early teen distain for 98 Degrees was entirely justified.     

LFO

I love the Lyte Funky Ones, better known acronymously as LFO. Always did, always will. “Summer Girls” could possibly be the stupidest song – nay, thing – ever recorded, but there’s an audacity to the idiocy that I really admire. The song is a litany of non-sequiturs piled on top of each other in an ever-increasing spiral of madness, topped off with a vaguely offensive and highly douchey endorsement of Abercrombie and Fitch’s overpriced wares. But still, how can you not respect a song that has the derring-do to rhyme “hornet” with “sonnet”? In my mind’s eye, I see frontman Rich Cronin leaning back with a big smile after penning that particular couplet and calling it a day. Over the years, my appreciation for LFO has slowly morphed from ironic to sincere. “Girl on TV”, their follow-up single, is quite the toe-tapper, as is their last radio hit, “Every Other Time”. LFO embodied the feeling of walking out into a perfect summer day: the smell of cut grass, the knowledge that school still 6 weeks away, riding bikes with your friends, etc. Their music was bright and breezy, even as it was spectacularly dumb; these are also the same three adjectives I would choose to describe my own childhood. Tragically, Rich Cronin died last year from leukemia, bestowing a twinge of sadness to LFO’s formerly poppy offerings. The passage of time has, as usual, made everything about life suck. 

Conclusion:

There were just too many God damn boy bands to cover in just one post, so check back soon for Part 2, wherein I will cover the two biggest titans of the Boy Band Era: O Town and 2Ge+her. Naw, I’m just shitting you. You know who I’m talking about.