Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, Boyzone, O-Town, even the almighty 'NSync.
Where have these and all the other boy bands gone?
It seems like only yesterday when they flooded the airwaves, dominated
the music charts and inspired thousands of screaming fans to pledge
their undying allegiance.
These days, those same fans no longer blindly pursue the swooning
voices like mice following the Pied Piper. They have snapped out of their
trance and taken time to dissect the authenticity of their beloved
musical idols.
Many teens now say the poster-boy groups are formulaic and lack musical
innovation.
"They didn't play any instruments, they just sang and danced," said
Nick Friedlein, a student at Aquinas High School. "They didn't have the
same talent or appeal" of classic bands like the Beatles.
Friedlein's peers pointed to other possible pitfalls.
"They're more concerned with making the charts. Once the novelty wore
off, they lost their popularity," said Angela Vara at Yucaipa High
School. "They're pretty and they make a nice cover for an album. But with
them, it was more like when they lose their looks ... they'd be gone."
The fallen pop kings haven't vanished completely. They can still sell a
few albums, though not nearly as many as in their heyday. Some of them
also have moved on to solo careers. Nick Carter, of Backstreet Boys
fame, performed Saturday in Orange County.
He's not alone in trying to make a musical name for himself.
Members of the 'N Sync dynasty have branched out with individual
projects. Lance Bass attempted to become an astronaut but failed. J.C. Chavez
is trying to find a new niche in the music business. And the group's
biggest success story, Justin Timberlake, has launched a skyrocketing
solo career.
"'N Sync was my first love. But now you always hear people talking
about Justin," said Wonder Poynter, 12, of San Gorgonio High School. "His
album is nothing like 'N Sync, you wouldn't even know he was a part of
them. His sound is more R&B and soulful. He wanted to make his album to
show he had more."
But what is that extra element? Timberlake isn't the only sugary,
bubble-gum star trying to break the chains of a prefabricated pop sound.
Britney Spears is "not a girl not yet a woman" and escaping her
sheltered career to be "a slave for you." And Christina Aguilera has busted
out in all her half-naked, grinding sexiness. She and other teen singers
have gotten older -- some of them marrying -- and so have their
audiences. Maybe both sides grew a bit tired of each other. In a recent
magazine interview, Aguilera said she doesn't want that "poppy pop" image
anymore.
"Pop stems from popular. People perhaps want to be hip. But the poppy
image is a bit phased out," said Sarah Marie Tveit, who attends Martin
Luther King High School.
Pop hasn't vanished. It has simply morphed in a desperate attempt to
veer away from a watered-down, manufactured sound. Regardless of whether
fans grew tired, grew up or were trying to keep up with the trends,
it's clear that worshiping boy bands is now on the "out" list.
Besides Justin making his mark in the R&B scene, one area of music that
has been affected by the lack of a boy band outlet is the punk rock
scene.
The more upbeat poppy bands reminiscent of and including Blink 182 were
the next best thing. Anti-conformist punk mottos were once held sacred
but now have been contorted into a new form of pop-punk.
They all turned into punks, but its not genuine punk. The whole scene
changed drastically, the styles of music and dress are more pop rock.
The pop punks tend to like the guys in the band and not really the bands
themselves, but this new punk style is becoming popular and they want
to fit in. Even now all the pop stars like Britney Spears started
dressing punk.
In the music business, it's all a matter of giving the fans what they
want, about feeding the ravenous monster that is pop music. You could
argue that we're witnessing not only the death of boy bands, but the
death of pop in general. Perhaps not pop as in popular music, but pop as
in the bubble-gum pop as we've come to know it.
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