Compare them to New Edition, who seemed to have formed more organically…
4 Likes
New Edition was the blueprint for the whole “boy band machine” in the US in the 80’s: the likes of Maurice Starr exploited them and brought us watered down White versions like ‘New Kids on the Block’…
6 Likes
Yeah, I haven’t done the research, but it feels like Japan took their cue from the US girl groups/boy bands of the '70s, '80s and '90s and Korea refined it further.
Sure, the trajectory of the industry has made it really global - Japan and then Korea were originally adopting practices from the industry in other countries (particularly the US) - but it feels like Korea’s industrialized refinement of the dynamics is what’s being imitated at this point, due to its monstrous success.
4 Likes
Sure, but it seems that the origins were more organic, in that they don’t seem to have been originally put together by a label, but came together on their own.
3 Likes
Oh for sure; the group got together all on their own, and then they were “discovered” by Starr, who ripped them off.
5 Likes
Yeah, the industry has always been incredibly exploitative, especially of young people… Johnny Lydon wasn’t referring to the fans in SF when he said “ever got the feeling you been cheated…”
4 Likes
You can trace it even further back to Motown, which, AFAIK, was the first label to undertake systematic “artist development”.
Artist development was a major part of Motown’s operations instituted by Berry Gordy. The acts on the Motown label were fastidiously groomed, dressed and choreographed for live performances. Motown artists were advised that their breakthrough into the white popular music market made them ambassadors for other African-American artists seeking broad market acceptance, and that they should think, act, walk and talk like royalty, so as to alter the less-than-dignified image commonly held of black musicians by white Americans in that era.
In Japan, Johnny Kitagawa started churning out boybands in the 1960s, setting a template that never changed.
4 Likes
Being a Detroiter who lives maybe two miles away from the now Motown Museum, it immediately sprang to mind.
The amount of abuse in the music industry as a whole is repulsive and alarming AF. Some places/people really do take it to an even more disgusting sub-sub-sub-sub-level.
This can be extrapolated to pretty much any undertaking that is termed an ‘industry.’
8 Likes
Now you have the RBD…
And again another Young Man had to hide His sexuality.
4 Likes
Sometimes the inspiration is very open.
3 Likes
Well, going back in time, there’s The Monkees, too. Assembled to a template and a script.
4 Likes
Some people dare to say the First boy band was formed in Liverpool in the 1960’s.
ETA
But IMHO It is a little bit of stretch.
2 Likes
Some people would be wrong. The whole concept of ‘boy band’ is that it is assembled by others to a marketing template. That was not The Beatles. They were just ‘a band’.
ETA It is well beyond a stretch.
3 Likes
But of course, that’s different… because… reasons.
Not really. They were influenced by American girl bands and their early music certainly had a very teen-aged vibe…The biggest difference was that they wrote their own music and played their own instruments. Still, the early stuff is very “bop along, teen” fare… and their first fans were teen girls… So, yeah, fits the definition… They obviously moved in a very different direction as they evolved as a band. As do most artists.
Not necessarily…
Also…
4 Likes
And some people would say almost none of the groups mentioned qualify as a “real band,” because they don’t play any instruments, and often don’t write any of their own songs.
(The Beatles and the Jackson Five being notable exceptions.)
Regardless, the music industry as a whole has been historically corrupt and exploitative, throughout the modern world.
5 Likes
Shit, they made John Lennon stash his wedding ring when in public!
7 Likes
4 Likes
Yeah, bands do do shit for ‘image’ reasons. All of them.
But The Beatles were not found individually and then employed by a manager to be in a band. Their manager was their employee. In the early days, admittedly, in their naivety, they may have relied on their manager’s advice as to ‘how to make it’ and felt they had to do what he said (they may even have felt they were employees, what with how the money was controlled) but that wore off pretty fast, all things considered.
3 Likes
2 Likes
