Why are boybands hated so much? i mean yes the music is shallow but so is the whole genre of pop and rap but everyone picks onthe boybands. I enjoy their music and while they aint deep, they are fun. Whats wrong with that? PLeaqse dont give me the old “they are too commercialised and packaged” speech or “they all sound the same” heard those.
must admit…“celebrity” of NSYNC was awful…
For me it’s because their celebrity of out of proportion to their fame. I could recount the names of many boybands, maybe a few of their members, but I doubt I could name many songs. I certainly couldn’t connect songs to bands. The music is instantly forgettable.
That said, if you like them, that’s fine. I have a couple of friends who can be a bit opinionated about music, so I know how annoying it can be to be sneered at just because you like a song that doesn’t meet someone else’s standards.
:rolleyes: I take it you’ve never heard of Talib Kweli, Public Enemy, Outkast, Run DMC (at times - try Proud to be Black), De La Soul, Black Eyed Peas, or Jurassic Five, then?
Or how about the Beastie Boys’ Bodhisattva Vow:
-Adam Yauch (member of the Beastie Boys), liner notes of Sound of Science.
Maybe he was persumptuous, but it illustrates the depths of thought rap music can extend to. If you think that the ‘whole genre of… rap is shallow,’ then you simply haven’t been listening to the right rap music.
I think people hate boy bands in particular because they’re jealous. Girls go absolutely bonkers for them.
But I still think that the “processed” nature of making a boy band has to do with it. Or that they have little talent and don’t play instruments. No boy bands come anywhere close to the old school soul groups like The Temptations.
I also can’t appreciate music when the people who get all the glamour had no part in writing the music what so ever, and those who did get no recognition (Covers aside).
I hate boy bands because they call themselves “bands”. They are not “bands”, they are singing groups, singing (for the most part) songs written by hacks, and singing them very badly.
In almost every boy band, there is usually one guy who can carry a tune, and four guys who can dance and need every electronic piece of equipment on the planet to make it sound like they’re anywhere near in key or in tune.
And the “shallow” argument plays only too well. I’d even give them a break if their shallow songs had some sort of personal meaning to them, but when you have Glurge and Co.[sup]TM[/sup] pumping out songs for them with titles like, “Baby It’s You”, “Girl I Got To Have You”, “Baby I Want You”, “Girl Your The One”, “Baby, Girl, Your The Girl For Me, Baby” ad nauseum … forgive me if I doubt their musical integrity.
At least bad bands who do it for themselves are putting themselves into it and not counting on Boy Bands Incorporated to slap them together to make a buck.
And that’s why I hate boy bands.
You asked.
I don’t like them because while they are popular, they are everywhere. You can’t watch TV or open a magazine without seeing them. And I would like to see some truly talented muscians on MTV or VH1 for a change.
I certainly think that some of these boys can dance, but I know that there is a lot of talent that isn’t getting a shot because they don’t fit into that image.
They are generally despised by those not in the target audience - a common failing among all people, as you will discover. I remember my wife and I a few years ago, for some reason, just bitching about how stupid Barney was.
Of course he’s “stupid”! He’s meant for 2 year olds! :smack:
Same thing here. I don’t care for them because I’m not the target audience, but I hope I learned some perspective in the past 10 years and do not waste my time actively disliking something that isn’t made for me to like in the first place.
Well… didn’t mean to go on a mini-rant. Sorry 'bout that.
To answer the OP: I hated them when I was 13 because all the girls went goo-goo for the acts, while sharing none of the love with me. What more excuse do you need? 
Sorry Splanky, but that isnt always true, Most of the members of *Nsync and O-Town can play instruments, O-town usually plays the instruments on their songs.
Most of the songs on the more recent albums of either group were written by the members.
And Jack Batty, not all groups have that formula, *Nsync is pretty damn good Acapella (Not that I could spell that word)
I try to keep track of who does what in the boy group circut
You know, I hate it when people make a big deal of things, and start screaming “CITE” at the top of their lungs … so I won’t do that.
Instead I’ll just say what most people mean when they say, “cite”:
Horse-poopies.
Thank you.
From the liner notes of the Monkees’ Greatest Hits: “At the current remove of nearly 30 years, many of the burning issues that made the Monkees so easy for hipsters to hate have lost their heat. It’s hard to condemn the Monkees for using sessioneers on so many records when it was subsequently revealed that The Byrds, Beach Boys and Paul Revere and The Raiders followed similar practices… the Monkees’ straight pop material… that got them labeled as bubblegum in the first place, today stand as models of classic pop. Their long term impact has far outlasted their 1966 chart-race competitors…”
So, we wait 30 years and see who stands the test of time. My bet is that there will still be a few *NSync songs getting airplay on the oldies stations, simply because they’re straightforward, simple, catchy pop. I have serious doubts about any of the other boy bands.
I’d say that, to a certain extent, a lot of these more famous boy bands are actually a lot more hands-on when it comes to their newer material. Problem is that they didn’t do that for the majority of their other material. When you get to this point, whether O-Town plays the instruments or not, I saw them make their first two albums on tv (yeah, I watch trash) and saw very little actual involvement in the creative process. It’s really just a case of too little, too late. Sure, it’s easy to rudimentarily play instruments on a huge cd when someone has already set up a gigantic media machine in your favor.
I don’t know about Nsync or O-Town but I do know that all of the Backstreet Boys play instruments. As for the cite I can tell you I’ve seen them play and if you want more information go to backstreet.net and I’m sure you’ll find out much more than you ever cared to know about the Backstreet Boys.
As for the OP I adore the BSB and their music has meant a lot to me over the past 5+ years that I’ve been a fan. Their music may seem shallow to non-fans but to their fans some songs do have a lot of meaning to them. And despite popular belief not every single song is written by some old swedish fat guy with a lot of spare time on his hands. Several songs on Black and Blue and Millenium (sp?) were written or co-written by the boys and there are several songs that weren’t released in the US or are just extras on cd singles and such that were also written by the boys. FYI
As for the other boy bands I’m not as much of a fan but I do enjoy some of their music. (Nsync and LFO are okay, O-town I could care less about) It’s fun and upbeat and great to have ooey-gooey “I love you snookums” moments to.
Man, living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag (Bust it!)
-Beastie Boys
Hmmm. Deep. :rolleyes:
Gee Jack, for the moment, my proof is that I’ve seen them in concert more than once, and I have seen them play there instruments. I have every episode of “Making the band” on tape, and a few show them in concert , in rehersal, and in the studio playing instruments as well as writing songs.
I saw Making the Band too (parts of it) and did not see one of them pick up an instrument. In fact all the music they sang and lip synced too seemed to be recorded before any of them even met each other, and persusing various album credits (Here for example, I see that none of the “Primary Artist” is listed as playing anything.
Just because you see a guy sitting on a stage behind a piano, doesn’t mean he’s actually playing it. Doesn’t mean he’s actually singing, for that matter.
See: Milli Vanilli
We the American working population
Hate the fact that eight hours a day
Is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn’t us
And we may not hate our jobs
But we hate jobs in general
That don’t have to do with fighting our own causes
We the American working population
Hate the nine to five day-in day-out
But we’d rather be supporting ourselves
By being paid to perfect the pasttimes
That we have harbored based solely on the fact
That it makes us smile if it sounds dope
Fumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition and
Yawn and stretch and my life is a mess and
If I never make it home today, God bless
-Aesop Rock
As for the boy bands, I don’t think it’s just about them being prefabricated and “fake”. It’s more that they’re so blatant about it.
Sorry Jack, but I have the distinct feeling that any evidence I have will not succeed in changing your mind about O-Town.
I’m sure the idea that saying " When you see someone in concert, you an tell, especially when you’re in the front row"wouldnt even make a small dent in it. So i wont bother.
As my mom would say, “Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one”
Some quality and intelligent work has been done by groups categorized as boybands in the past. I wish Peta Tsunami were still around to discuss the Monkees adequately, but I’ll merely point to the mordant satire of “Pleasant Valley Sunday” as an example.
And at least one song by the one recent boyband not to come out of the Orlando Boyband Factory, Boyzone, was an insightful protest against third-party condemnation of the feeling of love between the singer and his beloved, made the more intriguing by the fact that the lead singer was openly gay.