Boybands Forever

[Fluctuate]

Girlbands Forever: Girls Aloud and Mis-Teeq on the 'chaos' of being in a girl group

Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Atomic Kitten and Mis-Teeq reveal what life was like at the height of their fame.

www.bbc.co.uk

The BBC has an article linked to the show but a) the lead photo on the main page and article is Girls Aloud who aren't even featured, b) they list Blackstreet (No dignity, no doubt) as a boyband alongside Five and One Direction and c) they insinuate that boybands are tit and only popular because of hormonal teenage girls, but suggest that 1D aren't part of this and were artistically superior. The disrespect to bands like Take That, East 17 and NSync!

Honestly this tit makes me want to stop paying the licence fee.

Blasphemy!
Although hormones definitely played a part for me.

All the downsides of being in a girlband that were mentioned in that article are echos of what the boybands said last year. The music industry was, and probably still is, manipulative and toxic for everyone, regardless of sex.

 

[UnresolvedYin]

Ha yes hormones were definitely present but I would not have fancied Tony Mortimer an at all the same way if he hadn't written lines like "Outside it's raining but insider it's wet" and "I'll butter the toast if you lick the knife".

Steam is probably the best sex song of the 90s. Let the lake of love flow

 

[Emiano]

I’ve been wondering why boybands seem to have disappeared (aside from the whole BTS K-pop phenomenon). Ever since the invention of the “teenager,” there’s always been a generation of hormonal girls screaming for cute boy, starting with The Beatles. For decades, pop culture was built on that formula. But now, the charts are dominated by solo female artists, and young women seem to fangirl over them instead of boybands. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a new Justin Bieber or One Direction. Have young girls stopped lusting after cute guys and started aspiring to be like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and the rest instead?

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

Ha yes hormones were definitely present but I would not have fancied Tony Mortimer an at all the same way if he hadn't written lines like "Outside it's raining but insider it's wet" and "I'll butter the toast if you lick the knife".

Steam is probably the best sex song of the 90s. Let the lake of love flow

What about the lyric “I’ll be the sponge, the sponge, the sponge that wets you down”

I like Deep!

 

[maytoseptember]

I’ve been wondering why boybands seem to have disappeared (aside from the whole BTS K-pop phenomenon). Ever since the invention of the “teenager,” there’s always been a generation of hormonal girls screaming for cute boy, starting with The Beatles. For decades, pop culture was built on that formula. But now, the charts are dominated by solo female artists, and young women seem to fangirl over them instead of boybands. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a new Justin Bieber or One Direction. Have young girls stopped lusting after cute guys and started aspiring to be like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and the rest instead?

You’re so right! Teenage culture has changed so much. It’s almost like One Direction were so huge, everyone stopped trying to create a new boy band. Only K-Pop has got close to that level of boy band success since then.

Partly it’s because streaming changed the music industry model so much and the money isn’t in music sales anymore, but touring and merch. That means record companies don’t want to take a risk on a boy band when female solo artists are the zeitgeist.

I also think it has something to do with today’s social justice obsessed youth culture that venerates identifying as queer or gay or trans. There’s not much of a place for heterosexuality and with that, teenage girls in love with boy bands.

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

Did any of you watch Building The Band? Wasn’t a fan of either of the boybands that got to the finals

 

[Pinkii]

Just catching up on the show- only seen 2 episodes

i’ll be honest, glad girls aloud weren’t included- have heard and seen their story sooo many times, there is only so much you can re-has the same thing. I also skipped the spice girls part, cause of the same.

the girls were all genuinely all so gorgeous and fresh faced and so individual back then, shame to see how filled up majority of them are now

few bands I would have liked to seen but i guess they weren’t big enough to include, like honeyz, the 411 ( still miss them) cleopatra, precious and the Saturdays would have been good, but tbh they were good tabloid fodder but they didnt actually have any massive stand out hits so wouldnt say they were ground breaking enough

 

[Ivegone]

Spice girls at the bbc omg viva forever is so sad

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

Spice girls at the bbc omg viva forever is so sad

I watched this. Did Mel C have a love of top hats in 2007? Two performances of Headlines I’ve seen and she’s wearing one in both

 

[Jas19/2]

I’ve been wondering why boybands seem to have disappeared (aside from the whole BTS K-pop phenomenon). Ever since the invention of the “teenager,” there’s always been a generation of hormonal girls screaming for cute boy, starting with The Beatles. For decades, pop culture was built on that formula. But now, the charts are dominated by solo female artists, and young women seem to fangirl over them instead of boybands. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a new Justin Bieber or One Direction. Have young girls stopped lusting after cute guys and started aspiring to be like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and the rest instead?

Since watching these documentaries I’ve wondered the same there is no British boy band or girl band and there’s no real prominent solo artist the music industry into the 2000 has gone downhill especially in Britain

 

[Jas19/2]

They need to bring top of the pops back

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

They need to bring top of the pops back

Why? The charts don’t matter like they used to. How many people know or care now who is number 1

 

[UnresolvedYin]

I do think the complete lack of anywhere to do performances and interviews is interesting. In many ways the music industry is better now, but a lot has been lost. Back in the day you had TOTP, CD:UK, Live and Kicking, the Pepsi Chart show, the O Zone, Popworld, TFI Friday, even the lottery shows. Now there is hardly anything, especially skewed towards younger audiences. You get artists in Graham Norton or Strictly or whatever but that's one artist and one song, not a show celebrating music.

 

[NowIsGood]

They need to bring top of the pops back

BBC4 7pm on a Friday is my happy place- classic TOTP! They're currently in September 1998 and I can't tell you how many songs I've rediscovered!
There's a book called Freak like me about a guy called Malcolm who was obsessed with going to Totp and following pop acts back in the day. I would highly recommend to anyone into late 90s/00s ear of pop culture- I keep spotting him in the classic episodes!

 

[Pinkii]

its a whole different ball game now. Girl bands and boybands need to appeal to the younger kids- but there is no where for them to actually do promo to hit that demographic- thats what sat morning tv was for or top of the pops etc.

You know how MTV killed the radio star, social media killed the popstar.

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

I do think the complete lack of anywhere to do performances and interviews is interesting. In many ways the music industry is better now, but a lot has been lost. Back in the day you had TOTP, CD:UK, Live and Kicking, the Pepsi Chart show, the O Zone, Popworld, TFI Friday, even the lottery shows. Now there is hardly anything, especially skewed towards younger audiences. You get artists in Graham Norton or Strictly or whatever but that's one artist and one song, not a show celebrating music.

I agree. Something I noticed too when I rewatch a lot of shows on Pluto from my childhood. Sister Sister, Moesha, Sabrina. They all had multiple pop stars on them but I feel like that just doesn’t happen now. N Sync, Backstreet Boys, Dru Hill, Mya and Blackstreet, Tyrese Gibson, Next are just a few of the ones I can think of from episodes I’ve watched over the last year

 

[Jas19/2]

its a whole different ball game now. Girl bands and boybands need to appeal to the younger kids- but there is no where for them to actually do promo to hit that demographic- thats what sat morning tv was for or top of the pops etc.

You know how MTV killed the radio star, social media killed the popstar.

I know I remember the pop stars and bands used to go on programs like GMTV of a morning this morning CDUK top of the pops t4 what the hell happened to all that good stuff? I used to love them type of programs then they used to do promotion on the radio and music channels where a good one and liquid news now they have hardly anything. I’ve just been doing some research to why the British record industry doesn’t invest into any bands apparently it’s all down to cost. It’s easier and cheaper for them to market a solo artist than a band.

 

[Jas19/2]

I remember, I always knew what was out on the charts now. I couldn’t tell you what’s in the charts now I loved watching the music channels or watching top of the pops . Now you have to sort of seek it out.

 

[Miss.Chanandler.Bong]

There’s still loads of music channels rn but soon all of the MTVs music channels will be axed. I loved The Box. Calling up to get the video I wanted!!

 

[Gossngiggles]

A lot of bands and singers used to go all over the country playing at clubs etc night after night too. My sister saw Take That in a really crappy nightclub before they became famous, she must have been about 15/16 at the time. I saw Craig David in the same way before he became big. I don’t know if that kind of thing still exists now, when you could go out with a tenner and it would last you the night.