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

Well, I hate Manufactured groups as much as the next biggot. So why not check out my highly innaccurate synopsis titled 'Boy Bands, Girl Bands and Hybrids', hmm?

I'm completely with you, on this one, Charlie. The entire idea of boy bands is for the record companies to make incredibly large amounts of money from them, because they charge such high prices for the CD's, merchandise etc. Young girls think the bands are great, due to some adolesent hormone imbalance or something, and feel that they have to buy everything even slightly associated with the band in question. It's very difficult to explain to them that they shouldn't really be looking at the appearance of the band, but actually listening for their musical and lyrical content.

Not that they write their own material anyway. I have a feeling that the reason the songs all sound the same is that the songs are all written by the same bloke, who is probably extremely wealthy. In my opinion they are basically just extremely realistic puppets, and despite the hype will never replace the likes of Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin and any other group that writes it's own material and plays their own music.

One bloke writing all those songs, preposterous.
I reckon it's a computer, a knackered old 286 running an unregistered shareware program "Boy Band Pro". The time and effort spent in the studio by the producers is in weeding out all the references to "you have been using Boy Band Pro for more than 30 days. If you wish to continue to use the program, please send 30 dollars to..."

Yeah right on!

Actually I only wanted to reminise fondly of the mag "Look-In". Is it still about? If so do the ads still have cornball "Look Out for Look In, every week"

A real blast from the past..... now when are they going to put repeats of "Tomorrow People" on??

My band recently got hold of Cakewalk and decided it might be good to try and use it, given that we've only got a small piece of grey plastic 4-track to otherwise create demos. The result was certainly a little more polished and hi-fi than we've had before but given the limitations of drive space, we had to use a lot of the same .wav samples for the similar parts in songs. We also noticed how incredibly easy it was to create dance numbers. Blinding people with the number of noises and the speed with which they appear to distract them from the empty lyrics, lack of melody and deeply multitracked vocals seems to be the order of the day. Maybe some of our friends in audio software design could implement bugs that cause their programs to crash when they detect multi-layered sugary vocals being repeated at frequent intervals along a track.
Maybe MTV ought to scrap their video awards and replace them with the Decent Tune and Wordcrafting awards.

Sorry to resurrrect old stuff, but I just had to have my say re. Mr. Cohen - I find his voice one of the most attractive I have ever listened to. Granted, some of his lyrics are perhaps a little cynical or dark - but you can't really call him depressing. Some of his stuff (I'm only really familiar with his recent stuff) is beautiful and poetic and warm and romantic and funny and wry and witty and ... well I think he has perhaps the sexiest singing voice I have ever heard. I have never felt depressed listening to him.

(I think it's the deep voice - makes people think he must be singing about miserable stuff?)

Hi FrizzyChick, while old Lenny may have a sexy gravelly voice and write the occasional happy bunny lyric, he did write an album called 'Songs of Love and Hate'. Began with the cheery lyric,
"I stepped into an avalanche it covered up my soul,
when I am not this crippled hunchback that you see,
I sleep beneath the golden hill.
You who wish to conquer pain you must learn to serve me well"

Maybe you're right though - his voice isn't depressing, but errm melancholically cathartic or suchlike. Whereas when I hear Ronan Keating on the radio I start to reach for the razor blades

OK OK - I guess I only pay attention to the more mellow or romantic of Leonard's ditties
I guess I just consider there to be nothing inherently wrong with miserable music, so cannot understand 'being miserable' as a criticism.

It was more an observation really. Jeez, my record collection includes 'Berlin' by Lou Reed, 'Pink Moon' by Nick Drake, all of Joy Division, all of The Smiths, The Cure etc. ... I think it's great and doesn't make me unhappy. Have you ever heard 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep', 'Save All Your Kisses For Me' or 'Agadoo' , now there are some songs to make people consider suicide as a less painful option.

I agree. I also despise boy bands and most mainstream pop.
However I do think that they may have a use. Look at the fan base. Good bands like Radiohead, Nirvana, Manics etc pride themselves in being alternative. Why? Simply because the majority of the population are idiots. If pop music was scrapped then alternative rock would replace it. This might sound good at first but try to picture what Radiohead would look like if their intellectual fan base was replaced with teenyboppers. It would destroy them and all they stand for. We need dumbed down pop to keep the stupid majority distracted while a select few can enjoy the sound of real music.

Remember, It's better to be loved by few than liked by many.

Can I just comment on the Boybands - teenage girl thing by saying that a major market is being neglected here. Most boybands are actually aimed at the Gay market.

Controversial view maybe....

Boy-Bands are simply this: a crapload of propaganda! They are directed at anyone foolish enough to pick up(and read) a teen magazine... so that can be most anyone, including the gay populace!!!

I'm happy to pick up a magazine featuring any boy band out there today!! Those publications are _quite_ wonderful-- for placing in a dumpster, dousing in gasoline, and setting aflame!!!

BWAH HA HA HA!!!!

Long Live THE BEATLES!!!!

I hate watching Mtv and hearing girls swooning, "Oh, they are such great musicians!!!" The pretty guys are NOT musicians!! I doubt they even know what musicianship is(a kind of style, pride, what-you-will, that comes from mastering an instrument or voice)-- they are just lip-syncing performers!!!

I have a cousin who tried to defend the Spice Girls one time. "Scary plays that harmonica, you know..."

::laughter::

Now I have time for the Spice Girls as they are unashamedly artificial and make no bones about it. It is bands like Westlife I cannot stand.

Why not ignore them and hope they go away ! alternatively wave a towel at them, their small manufactured boyband type brains would either have serious trouble coping with the gesture and explode or alternatively they would take the towel from youwear it on there head or any other body part and start a massive world wide craze in towel fashion.


Suck My Towel !!

The Movement for systematic elimination of Daphne, Celeste and any other similar crap. I mean, Ohh stick you ??!!#@ and who could forget U-G-L-Y, well i'm trying ever so hard !!

I can understand the songwriting difficulties thing...But then, the vast majority of boybands (more like ALL of them) don't even write their songs. Perhaps they hire some lonely, depressed freak they meet on tour to write songs? But what about that Max Martin guy (he writes songs for practically all the manufactured groups)? He must be either a very sad man or a very imaginative one.
Overall, I think the idea of a boyband is quite a ridiculous concept, but what's even sadder is, I'm within the target audience. However, I have no desire to watch twentysomething brats jump around and lip-synch to synthetic "music" with laughable lyrics ("there you are! wild and free! reaching out like you need me!" ~actual Back Street Boys lyrics...sickening...). I think there should be radio stations that do NOT allow boybands at all...here in the States, you can't listen to ANY stations (except classical and oldies) without being bombarded with Nsync, Back Street Boys, 98 Degrees, 2gether, BB Mack, etc...UGH

Uhhh... that isn't exactly true!!! I live near Denver, CO, and I am familar with a few stations besides Oldies and Classical that NEVER air BSB, N*Sync, Britney Spears, etc... But still, I can only count my blessings on one hand...

I can't believe that so many young girls think these groups and icons are sooo fantastic!!! I am appauled-- for reasons previously stated, as well as reasons soon to be stated...

The only energy those kids put into their "music" is performance!!! they put on a show choreographed, and scripted by others(well, I hardly blame the choreographers and songwriters for hiding-- I'd do the same!!!).

What I find most disgusting is a recent gut-wrenching piece of work, written by someone who writes for the Backstreet Boys, and-- well-- Celine Dion was DELIGHTED to know that one of THOSE SONGS had been written for her!!!

ACK!!!!

I shiver and shudder... Where is my shelter!?? It hurts... It.. hurts...

Now wait justa minute. I agree these boy bands do not ad anything to the world of "legitamate" music, there is no reaching for the bounds of artistic creativity, or what people will accept. It also seems like they are just a toumerous outgrowth from prosperous economies where there are millions of teens with 16 bucks to buy an album. But some of the vocal harmonies they do when they are not dancing around are still beautiful, I know from singing in choirs, that harminizing a cappela is a rather difficult thing to accomplish, so they must have some degree of musicianship. Unfortunatly, that does not comprise the meat of their performance.

I agree, I blame the parents!!

Kids should be encouraged to listen to fantastic music by,
the Stereophonics, Muse, ColdPlay, Limp Bizkit, The Manics, Travis.
A couple of those may may be lost on US researchers.

Some of the very worst stuff i've ever heard has to be from that little shite aaron carter. Although I don't like the music particularly you have to credit hanson for playing instruments and writting their own songs.