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

50 years ago The beatles issued their first record (Love Me Do/PS I Love You) and what do I see on Hootoo's front page?

West Life!

You realize of course, this means war!

Taht is... We must act immediately!

Sorry about the timing

Do feel free to make suggestions as to future topical Featured entries Pierce.

We've loads of stuff about the Beatles though - including this one by Jimster A13065734, which has information about Love me Do.

I have fond memories of Liverpool, blocking tunnels, roads, causing workmen to remove fences they just built, getting a wheel painting, and even have been outside the Cavern.

But the thing that sticks in my memory the most is a Russian who thought it was the capital of England because of listening to the banned pirate radio from behind the iron curtain.

There are several reasons why I might not ever have heard about Westlife:

1. It may be exclusively UK in reach. Just as Robbie Williams is fabulously popular in the UK, but not much more than a blip in the U.S., the situation might be similar for Westlife.

2. Westlife might be a schoolbus radio kind of band. I remember hearing Peggy Lee and the Beach Boys and Roger Miller on the school bus radio when I was going to school in the 1960s. Now that I don't ride to school any more, and my car radio is not tuned to popular stations, I wouldn't be likely to hear them. My local classical station has, however, played Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" in a piano transcription. It also airs the Boston Pops gospel choir. In another 100 years, some of today's "popular" music will be considered classical, but I will be too old to listen to it then.

don't be sorry, GB, I wasn't being *that* serious

since you don't smoke have a instead

A third reason that I might not have heard of West Life is that they don't show up on the lists of top-selling artists, where the requirement for inclusion tends to be sales of 50 million recordings or more. Enya, for instance, is Irish and has sold 70 million recordings. I found her on a list, tried listening to one of her recordings, and decided not to listen to her any more. Nevertheless, at least I've heard of her and have heard some of her music.

West Life doesn't get onto those sorts of lists because the group has "only" sold 45 million recordings. Now that I've heard of the group, I might be willing to give their recordings a try. I couldn't have done that before I knew they existed.

I think the US just has a thing against boy bands

There was someone in my PR thread who had never heard of them so I added a section of recommended plays (it's the last part of A87769534). I would never forgive myself if you typed Westlife into YouTube and got "Bop Bop Baby" or any of the Rat Pack covers

Do you watch X-Factor USA? I can hear Westlife playing over some of the interviews and post-auditions, right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUOEaqEu8NU

"I think the US just has a thing against boy bands" [Galaxy Babe]

Some parts of the U.S., maybe, but not Boston. New Kids on the Block were a product of the Boston streets. Mark Wahlberg and his brother Donnie made the leap from singing in that group to film stardom.
Donnie has 39 film credits as an actor according to IMDB.com. Mark, who joined the group after its founding, has 38 film credits. After the group's disbanding in 1994, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, and Joey McIntyre recorded solo albums. The group reunited in 2007, minus Mark Wahlberg.

I'm not sure what the definition of "boy band" is. There may be some American ones out there. There's a wonderful spoof on boy bands in the film "Rock of Ages," which is based on a Broadway musical. Alec Baldiwn and Tom Cruise star in the film version.

Believe me, Paul, you're not missing much

Wot wot, Radiohead plays my theme tune.

"Believe me, Paul, you're not missing much" [Auntie Mal]

Since my last post, I've looked at a website that listed some prominent boy bands in the U.S. They include the Jackson 5 [which propelled Michael, Janet, and Latoya Jackson into superstardom], NSYNC, and The Backstreet Boys. I have representative CDs of the first and third.

The Osmonds, the Monkees, and Menudo are other examples. I have a CD of Monkees hits, and a CD of Ricky Martin's hits [Martin got started as a member of Menudo].

To be honest, I think boy bands have been more popular in the U.S. than in the U.K. Not that that's a big deal. Boy bands have at times been popular in the Rhythm and Blues genre. Is there much rhythm and blues in the U.K.?

Um, I think I was wrong when I said that the Jackson 5 propelled Janet and Latoya Jackson into superstardom. Boy bands don't have female members. The Jackson 5 apparently morphed into The Jackson Family, which would no longer have been a "boy" band.

I think you'll find that quite a few British boy bands made quite the rage on a global scale. I could drop names like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones

Yes, yes, I know people will say "those are not what we define as boy bands" but still

The Monkees would be the first boy band, am I right? They were as far as I know the first "artificial product" (people hired to be in a group as opposed to people who got together to make music), do people here agree?

I believe so, which is why I put the Entry about them: A30560906 alongside GB's Entry about Westlife.

John Lydham

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHYUGBq5JsQ

I mean't John Lydam. The original boy band.