h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Boy Bands & the Evolution of Manufactured Music - A843130
Author: Nylarthotep - U200240

These bands stink, full stop.

... and I think that sums up the problem I have with this entry. It's so easy to criticise 'manufactured' bands (a term that, by the way, East 17, Bros and Wham! don't qualify for) but they work a damn sight harder than many supposedly serious 'rock' bands who make a lot of noise but don't really add anything new to music either.

Opinion is fine, but you also have to be balanced and I don't feel this has enough balance to make it anything less than a rant. Which is a shame, because it's very well structured.

Couple of pointers:

- The comments on Gary Barlow are borderline libellous. Definitely advise rewording this to be less offensive.

- As was revealled some time after the event, Ronan Keating wasn't the manager of Westlife (that was just a publicity stunt), that was Louis Walsh.

Jimster

Criticism noted. Maybe a follow-up on bands like Bon Jovi and Nickleback is in order here?

This is in essence a lighthearted journey through the evolution of what we term a "boy band" today hoping to highlight the foibles of the genre. The fact is that every musical genre from pop to dance to R'nB to rock harbours certain groups that are to a greater or lesser degree manufactured and groomed to appeal to a predetermined audience cynically earmarked by the moguls of the music industry. The fact that this article chooses to focus on boy bands is neither here nor there. Personally I find them boring and repetative, but I accept that there are large numbers of people who invest a great deal in their music and find them uplifting as role-models. This article could have been written about gangster rappers with less than "street" credentials, about pop-punk bands that have flooded the charts in the past few years but added nothing to the Punk genre as a whole or even about so-called "divas" that sell themselves on cover versions of older and more talented artists material.

If you want to object to worthless rock bands go ahead, I won't protest and I'll try to appreciate your point, if you have one. If you want to disagree with the content herein then go ahead, that's what the discussion forum provided here is for. If you feel that boy bands are a wonderous thing that should be celebrated then write an article that highlights this fact.

We all know that these artists are manufactured...the question is why do we embrace them despite this fact when we know that their message is not sincere?

'If you feel that boy bands are a wonderous thing that should be celebrated then write an article that highlights this fact.'


Have done - A742709

'We all know that these artists are manufactured...the question is why do we embrace them despite this fact when we know that their message is not sincere?'

Or alternatively, why do people get so angry about bands who nevertheless can harmonise, have proven their singing abilities against thousands of other hopefuls and have allowed a new generation to hear inoffensive pop songs from the past? Maybe

This is, nevertheless, a good entry, but it could be a great one with a little more balance to its approach, and a spell-check.

Jimster

"Hi, my name is Nylarthotep, and I don't like boy bands..."

To approach this with "more balance" as you suggest would, I believe, mean going against my own feelings as regards the issue of manufactured music.

Maybe origionality is an issue here. One cover is one thing, a glut of them is another. A cover version is a safe, but never-the-less uninspiring choice when it comes to the material a band puts out. Atomic Kitten, for example, have used cover versions to jump-start their career and then to maintain success thereafter. HearSay were covered "Monday, Monday" (think that was the title) to raise their profile. The bands are singing, no doubt, but their talents are being used to do nothing new.

Many of the greatest talents that the world has seen thus far have not been able to sing in the strictest sense of the word, let alone harmonise. But they came from obscurity and made the industry take notice on the strength of their own music rather than singing Britney Spears songs in front of Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell.

A boy band with a political agenda, or one that made social commentory? Now that would be something a little different.

I would suggest that 'From the Beatles to Hearsay - the desceration of a heritage' would make a better title, but I suppose that just reflects my personal taste.

This could do with some sort of timeline entry. If Bill Hayley is the starting point, then you could have a date entry - recording - comments type format. Possibly this could be developed as a sort of family tree type affair - though what kind of offspring comes from Bill Hayley to Little Jimmy Osmond does not bear thinking about.

Hell Jimster, that's a pretty darn well researched article on Boyzone!

So they too had to drive around in a grotty old van...well there is hope for the world of music yet.

By the way, did you know that Mutt Lang who used to write for Def Leppard is now writing for Ronan Keating? stranger than fiction is life.

Hehe - it's funny how the almost instant reaction of most boyband members once they're free of the band is to go 'rock'. Robbie Williams did it, Mark Owen did it, Mikey Graham went Country, even Michael Jackson went for a slightly darker approach with 'Off the Wall' from the kind of material he'd been doing with his brothers.



I know where you're coming from with the concerns that your entry won't be your own opinion if you change it, by the way, but it just happens to be the Editorial policy of the Edited Guide - it doesn't mean you can't be opinionated, but that opinion is best presented if it's kind of to one side of unbiased.

For the most-part I don't think that will affect the actual entry itself, but there are a few tweaks I'd suggest:

'Not much happened in terms of music until the mid-part of the twentieth century'

A bit confusing - Glenn Miller's family might debate that

'when an American redneck'

The term 'redneck' is a bit strong here. In certain parts of the States it's considered very abusive to use this word.

'It was left to the stalwart British to really kick-start the Boy Band revolution'

Buddy Holly and the Crickets notwithstanding.

The paragraph on The Monkees is on very shakey ground. Yes, they were hired as actors 'playing' a band, but you suggest that they *couldn't* play their instruments rather than this being a secondary concern. And of course, they mimed in the TV show because that's how TV shows and films are made (Elvis didn't sing live in his films - the music was dubbed onto his performance, but that's not to say he didn't sing live in his stage shows).

'there were manufactured bands with no real musical talent or ability' - again, this is a very opinionated statement presented as fact. You're suggesting here that, just because the band is brought together by means other than friendship or family, they therefore cannot have talent of any kind.

'Bros were perhaps the first boy band to cash in on the "bad boy" image with leather jackets and ripped jeans.'

It's easy to forget, but just because they were punks, doesn't change the fact that the Sex Pistols were a manufactured boy band. Arguably the single most manufactured band in history. Had some cracking songs though. 'Anarchy in the UK's still as powerful now as it was then.

'nowadays only under the headline "guess who's flipping cowparts at McDonalds for a living'

Hmm. You didn't see Blade II this summer, by any chance, did you? Main villain in it was Luke Goss, who's also enjoyed a good career as a stage actor (in Grease, Plan 9 From Outer Space and What a Feeling) since Bros.

I notice since I first read this, you've changed the comments about Gary Barlow -

'Once more the group had five members who were unnable to play an instrument, write a song or sing on their own.'

The facts don't really bear you out on this one. Although they did perform a number of cover versions, not all of their number ones were covers and many of them were self-penned. And not all of them were just singers - Mikey Graham for one is also a guitarist, but that particular skill just wasn't called upon for this 'vocal' band.

I should again point out here that I wrote that entry for a bet, I wasn't a fan but in researching the band I did gain an insight into the hard work these kind of bands put in.

I notice A1 make a point of playing instruments nowadays, as did those Hanson boys. Aww...

'the more banal and annoying boy bands get'

Opinion again. Not personally a fan of any of the acts you name, but many millions of people are.

'[Westlife] demonstrated no apparent intelligence when interviewed'

A good case for defamation there. A rewording of this would be advisable.

'final band's battle to take the "coveted" Christmas number one slot in the music charts'

Actually, that wasn't the aim at all. Hear'Say's first single was released in March 2001.

'the band fell apart recently after less than a year together due to the fact that they had no redeeming qualities whatsoever'

Well, they were together for 18 months and enough people felt they had redeeming qualities to get them four top ten singles, a top-selling video and two albums.



Aside from the potential defamation issues, which I've pointed out, there's absolutely no problem with you leaving your entry as it is and out of the Edited Guide. But, as the Writing-Guidelines state:

'... for the Edited Guide we're looking for well-balanced entries rather than subjective rants. We're looking for entries that show both sides of the argument, especially on potentially contentious topics.'

I've picked out a few areas where I feel your entry really isn't subjective enough, but the rest of it reads very well and is very entertaining so I hope I'm not going to put you off by being overly critical. It's just that, if the Edited Guide is realy where you want to see this, these are the kinds of things we'd be looking to change, and we really prefer to encourage people to make their own changes than making them ourselves (though if you want, you could always keep this entry as it is and let the Edited version have all the 'fluffy' changes).

From a personal point of view, I just feel it's a bit... well, *easy* to criticise manufactured bands as they're more often than not the mouthpiece for songwriters and musicians who don't want to be in the limelight. Cathy Dennis is one such performer who decided to be a songwriter instead (she was the woman who gave Kylie her biggest global hit 'Can't Get You Out of My Head').

And, as I said in another thread some time ago, it's not as if Frank Sinatra or Elvis wrote the majority of their songs themselves. They were just the front-men for a team of writers, just as much as Kylie is.



Jims

Just to stick my nose in and add something in defence of the Monkees...

Micky Dolenz - an actor who auditioned for the Monkees and was 'volunteered' to be the drummer (ie, the others all refused to learn!). He could also sing ('I'm a believer', anyone..?)

Davy Jones - an actor (he'd appeared in 'Coronation Street' some years earlier) who could also sing.

Peter Tork - folk musician who played in several groups before auditioning for the Monkees.

Mike Nesmith - singer/songwriter/guitarist who had released a few singles before auditioning for the Monkees. After the Monkees he played with several bands and also became a producer

Mike and Peter in particular grew very disillusioned with the fact that they weren't allowed to write songs or play their own instruments. In the end, the group 'rebelled' against their managers and did produce their own material.

Ah well, back to the drawing board!

Mike Nesmith went on to become one of the most significant figures in modern popular music, by being one of the main figures behind the creation of MTV.

Hi Nylarthotep,

Are you still working on this? I'd hate it if I'd put you off, because aside from the legal and small factual errors I mentioned, I do honestly think it's still got loads of potenial. It's really well-written and has a strong point to make.

Any chance you might give it another go?

Jims

I don't see this conversation on Nylarthotep's PS Jims... looks like he's unsubscribed

Oops. Cheers, Gosho.