Middle-aged man rants against boy bands
Sep. 24—Boy bands have been the bane of my existence since I was in middle school. That's when I first heard of New Kids on the Block — essentially the very first boy band.
Their debut album came out in 1986, but I don't remember hearing about them until "Hangin' Tough" dropped two years later. I remember riding in a van with my youth group and all the girls were jamming out to the title track. It was torture.
Say what you will about NKOTB — such as, their music was terrible — but they set the template for future boy bands. Take "Hangin' Tough," in which they try to come off as hard or edgy in an effort to gain some kind of street cred that they're never going to get.
One of the most famous regurgitations of NKOTB is One Direction, which my oldest daughter listened to ad nauseam when she was a teenager. I was forced to listen to them on family road trips, in the house, and everywhere else you can imagine. One Direction was the quintessential boy band: five random guys with ridiculous hair thrown into a studio by music producer Simon Cowell.
Like their predecessors, 1D sang vapid songs about young love. And like New Kids, they tried to convince us they were rockers with the "Rock Me" track from the "Take Me Home" album, and then the following "Midnight Memories" album as a whole.
And I applaud the effort of 1D to evolve their sound. Regarding that latter album, "Story of My Life" is actually quite listenable. But it's offset by the annoying anthem "Best Song Ever."
The group took a "hiatus" in 2016, and my daughter is convinced they'll get back together at some point. She's probably right. I mean, Backstreet Boys did that a few years ago with the "Holy Crap We're Broke and Need Money" tour.
The latest boy band iteration can be found in the K-Pop (Korean pop) genre, and it seems BTS is the big act right now. I heard one snippet of one BTS song once, and that was more than enough.
Boy band songs are generally the same recycled tripe, written by a bunch of balding middle-aged men. No, seriously. Did you not see "Making the Band" some 20 years ago? It was this show on ABC in which aspiring artists competed for a record contract. I watched an episode or two, and the song writers were, well, a bunch of balding middle-aged men.
These dudes wrote lyrics that made teenage girls swoon, and I don't know what to do with that.
Of course, it's not the lyrics that hook the listener when it comes to boy bands. It's not really about the music at all. It's about a certain look, slightly modified over the years, that caters to teenage girl fantasies about a handsome young prince sweeping them off their feet. It's a foolproof formula.
Who's to blame for the existence of boy bands? One could argue that it's The Beatles. Four English blokes with ridiculous hair singing pop ballads, sending young girls into crying convulsions during their concerts. But there is one big difference between The Beatles and the likes of NKOTB, NSYNC, 1D and the others: The Beatles actually played their own instruments.
BRAD LOCKE is senior sports writer for the Daily Journal. Contact him on Twitter @bradlocke or email him at brad.locke@journalinc.com
