I'm A Bad Boy But I'm Nice (Boyband 15)
Inspired by Christophe calling Big Bang's "Blue" the greatest boyband song since Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," I compiled a list of fifteen boyband tracks. Not a best-of, not a survey, but some stuff I think highly of, and enough gaps to call forth lists of your own:
The Jewels "Hearts Of Stone"
Dion And The Belmonts "I Wonder Why"
The Marcels "Blue Moon"
The Miracles "You Really Got A Hold On Me"
The Beatles "She Loves You"
The Temptations "(I Know) I'm Losing You"
The Monkees "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"
The Jackson 5 "I Want You Back"
The Moments "Love On A Two-Way Street"
New Kids On The Block "You Got It (The Right Stuff)"
Bell Biv DeVoe "Poison"
*NSync "I Want You Back"
Backstreet Boys "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"
Big Bang "Tonight"
MBLAQ "I Don't Know"
I was extrapolating forward and back from early '90s usage; so, the male r&b vocal group taken to by kids and teens, with dancing. Orioles and Drifters not eligible, Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers are. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" eligible, "I Am The Walrus" not. "ABC" eligible, "Shake Your Body" not (among other things, vocals too much a Michael-only showcase). I count the Coasters, but I'd have chosen the Robins/Coasters' "Riot In Cell Block Number 9," which is a bit early and the content is probably insufficiently pre-teen (though I myself would've loved it as a tyke). I count the early Wailers, but my choice, "Jailhouse," is too late, and it reaches older than teen. I disqualified duos even though in my heart I'm sure the Everly Brothers belong for "Cathy's Clown" and "All I Have To Do Is Dream," and maybe even Simon & Garfunkel for the electric version of "Sounds Of Silence."
There are a whole bunch of reasons why country duo Brooks & Dunn aren't eligible, but going by sonics alone, "Ain't Nothing Bout You" would be right up our alley (or up the alley of Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinkin' About You," at any rate).
Enormous gaps in my knowledge, obviously; e.g., between "Two-Way Street" and "You Got It" and between "Everybody" and "Tonight." Along with the temporal gaps, there're the geographic (I'm missing Britain most notably, except for one minor band; also missing the Philly end of MotownPhilly, not to mention "MotownPhilly"; but hey, for once there's a genre where Boston matters, hurrah!), the cultural (for instance, I have no memory of what the Bay City Rollers sound like, or whether there were any freestyle boybands other than TKA), and gender (are there any all-women boybands other than Taiwan's MissTER?), not just gaps but vast missing expanses. Btw, there was a woman in the Miracles, Smokey's wife Claudette, though she tends not to show up on live clips.
The Marcels included two whites, but according to Wikip they left when it turned out that the group's being "mixed" meant it couldn't perform in the South.
Possibly the Moments had an audience that was too old; I wouldn't know, and without them the '70s go unrepresented. "Steppin' Stone" veers hard rock, but it's my favorite Monkees track. The Jewels may be just prior to the teen onslaught, but within a year the song was performed live by Elvis and hit the pop charts in versions by the Charms and the Fontane Sisters, and I felt like including it.
4/15 = 27% = titles with parentheses.
The big debate in my mind was whether to count Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz," which would have busted my genre wide open (speaking of Busted).
So have at it.
( Crossposting at , to see if it's still a ghost town.)
The Jewels "Hearts Of Stone"
Dion And The Belmonts "I Wonder Why"
The Marcels "Blue Moon"
The Miracles "You Really Got A Hold On Me"
The Beatles "She Loves You"
The Temptations "(I Know) I'm Losing You"
The Monkees "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"
The Jackson 5 "I Want You Back"
The Moments "Love On A Two-Way Street"
New Kids On The Block "You Got It (The Right Stuff)"
Bell Biv DeVoe "Poison"
*NSync "I Want You Back"
Backstreet Boys "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"
Big Bang "Tonight"
MBLAQ "I Don't Know"
Click to viewI was extrapolating forward and back from early '90s usage; so, the male r&b vocal group taken to by kids and teens, with dancing. Orioles and Drifters not eligible, Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers are. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" eligible, "I Am The Walrus" not. "ABC" eligible, "Shake Your Body" not (among other things, vocals too much a Michael-only showcase). I count the Coasters, but I'd have chosen the Robins/Coasters' "Riot In Cell Block Number 9," which is a bit early and the content is probably insufficiently pre-teen (though I myself would've loved it as a tyke). I count the early Wailers, but my choice, "Jailhouse," is too late, and it reaches older than teen. I disqualified duos even though in my heart I'm sure the Everly Brothers belong for "Cathy's Clown" and "All I Have To Do Is Dream," and maybe even Simon & Garfunkel for the electric version of "Sounds Of Silence."
There are a whole bunch of reasons why country duo Brooks & Dunn aren't eligible, but going by sonics alone, "Ain't Nothing Bout You" would be right up our alley (or up the alley of Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinkin' About You," at any rate).
Enormous gaps in my knowledge, obviously; e.g., between "Two-Way Street" and "You Got It" and between "Everybody" and "Tonight." Along with the temporal gaps, there're the geographic (I'm missing Britain most notably, except for one minor band; also missing the Philly end of MotownPhilly, not to mention "MotownPhilly"; but hey, for once there's a genre where Boston matters, hurrah!), the cultural (for instance, I have no memory of what the Bay City Rollers sound like, or whether there were any freestyle boybands other than TKA), and gender (are there any all-women boybands other than Taiwan's MissTER?), not just gaps but vast missing expanses. Btw, there was a woman in the Miracles, Smokey's wife Claudette, though she tends not to show up on live clips.
The Marcels included two whites, but according to Wikip they left when it turned out that the group's being "mixed" meant it couldn't perform in the South.
Possibly the Moments had an audience that was too old; I wouldn't know, and without them the '70s go unrepresented. "Steppin' Stone" veers hard rock, but it's my favorite Monkees track. The Jewels may be just prior to the teen onslaught, but within a year the song was performed live by Elvis and hit the pop charts in versions by the Charms and the Fontane Sisters, and I felt like including it.
4/15 = 27% = titles with parentheses.
The big debate in my mind was whether to count Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz," which would have busted my genre wide open (speaking of Busted).
So have at it.
( Crossposting at , to see if it's still a ghost town.)