It's all coming together...

So, in light of the culmination of my entire research coming together, I feel that I need to reassert what I’m trying to talk about. For a while it was even unclear to me, as my preceding posts suggest. In my response to some comments on this blog, I began to admit that I may have attempted to stretch my boy band model too far in an attempt to fit bands of today, while that may not be entirely possible. I believe I need to backtrack a little to get my point across more clearly…

I suggest that the economic model (which it truly is) that is the boy band is one that is not native to the 1990s: it is in fact a model that seems to come and go in waves. We know that this formulated style of popular music largely dominated the late 1990s with groups such as the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, etc. Often compared to the “machine-generated” popular music found in George Orwell’s 1984, boy band acts were manufactured and destined for commercial success (“Boy Band,” 2006). There is a common accusation of boy bands as seemingly lacking legitimacy as a genre. This accusation is typically made by members outside of the boy band youth culture. Because we are talking about the mainstream youth culture, it doesn’t receive nearly as much study or interpretation as counterculture, or subculture. It seems that people would rather discuss popular music in terms of cultural theory already in place than to conduct ethnographic research to define popular music as its own social practice and process (Frith, p. 199). The absence of a proper analysis and observation of popular music and boy bands in particular suggests the illegitimacy of the genre. It is of the highest importance that this assumption be overturned, not in spite of this fact, but simply because of it.

So, now onto my point… [Wait, Doug! Wait!!] Yes? [How is this a reoccurring model when you said that there really aren’t boy bands today?!?] Well, what may be new to consider is that the 1990s boy bands aren’t the first time we’ve seen this model. If the scope of exploration is broadened to include more than just the 1990s, groups such as The Jackson 5, Menudo, The Temptations, The Monkees, perhaps The Beatles in their early work, and others can be seen as boy bands (“Boy Band,” 2006). I will focus on The Monkees as the original boy band in a way. The similarities are too pertinent to deny.

The band was assembled in 1965 as a result of an audition for a weekly comedy TV show of the same name. (sound familiar??) The four members of the band were chosen in a large part due to their looks as opposed to their musical ability (Stahl, p. 310). The comparison to more modern boy bands is apparent, as they seem to share the same level of authenticity. The Monkees sang professionally written songs and were able to broadcast their music, looks, and style to an immense audience via the television. Just as music videos did for the 1990s boy bands, fans were able to put a face to the sounds they heard without having to undergo the expense of attending a concert. Seeing the faces of the music “emphasize[d] the importance of visual spectacle to the communicative “pacts” between boy band performers and their audiences.” (Wald, p. 3) The young fan base received the aesthetically pleasing appearance (due to no mistake) of the Monkees with intensity and near-hysteria. As you can see in my interviews in a previous post, 1990s boy bands seemed to draw in their audience with an undeniable attraction. He or she obviously [Clare] couldn’t help it [Christian], even if it was for a short period of time [Alexa]. It is also clear from these interviews, however, that all the interviewees felt strongly that dance played a big role in what constituted a boy band. I feel that this emphasized the young, energetic, and fun-loving characteristics of boy bands that made them so well received by a similar young audience. Take a look at this video for the Backstreet Boys’ song “As Long As You Love Me”:


The boys are dancing, but more importantly they’re displayed as young boys, just having fun

Now in this video for The Monkees’ song "I’ll Be Back Upon My Feet," there is some choreography involved (0:30 and 1:15 to mark a few spots), but The Monkees were most commonly known for their fun-loving attitude, just “monkeying around.”


I conducted a more recent interview with Chris, a 53-year-old Connecticut resident, who was 11 at the time that the Monkees were most popular. Chris was roughly the age of the pre-teen target market of the Monkees, and now with a daughter who is 21, he witnessed her go through the same experience 10 years ago with the 1990s boy bands. When asked about the similarities between the two, Chris responded: “Wow, that’s really interesting.” [yes… I know] “Well, The Monkees definitely had hits, they were around for about 3 years, and they were a little goofy and crazy, but they were safe enough that parents weren’t worried about their kids…. The safe aspect was important for parents… [but] I remember feeling like, this is our music.”

There are so many parallels in his experience as a youth to that of my generation’s experience with 1990s boy bands. For one, Chris touches on the well-crafted marketability of the group. They were targeted at an audience in which parental acceptance is necessary for profitability, but the kids still needed to feel like it was by no means their parents’ music. Chris also directly mentions the shelf life issue of boy bands, as we have seen in the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync who didn’t remain popular for more than half of a decade either.

To fully develop my theory of the boy band cultural model as cyclical, coming-and-going, the going must be addressed. So if the boy band model reoccurs, and is equally received in different periods in time, why does it disappear at all? Lou Pearlman, the mastermind behind a slew of 90s boy bands including the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, was quoted saying, “I’ll tell you exactly when it’ll be over, when God stops making little girls. Until then, we’ll keep going.” (Hiltbrand, p. 1) But there is a never-ending supply of young female audiences, and the boy band fad seems to come and go. The audience grows up, but is replaced by the aging of a younger audience. So why does the trend disappear? This comes back to the aspect of authenticity, or lack thereof, of boy bands and the contradictive nature of boy bands to “express themselves personally” while “suppress[ing] themselves musically” (Stahl, p. 313) In his article entitled, “In Search of Authenticity,” Richard Peterson says: “To be sure, authenticity is not equally important in all contexts. For example, in the case of opera and theatrical performances, the criterion of excellence is not whether an actor is authentic but whether she can sublimate her own personhood in order to act the part demanded by the particular role” (Peterson, p. 1086). Boy bands are accepted because their audience disregards, whether consciously or not, the fact that they are constructed. When I asked Chris whether he ever thought about the fact that The Monkees didn’t write their own songs, or were ‘manufactured,’ he responded, “Oh, God No! We didn’t think about it, or didn’t know, or didn’t care!”

This lack of authenticity, however, cannot be accepted by a performer forever, nor can it by a consumer. As groups strive to be more authentic, the consumer longs for something more genuine as well, hence the rise and fall of the boy band model. What takes its place is something on the other pole of authenticity. The wax and wane of commercial versus an undermining underground portrays the persistent desire for something new, even if it is not necessarily new. The Monkees’ fabricated authenticity gave way to the originality of “real” rock, where songs were written by members of the band themselves. The polished boy bands of the 1990s stepped aside for the raw grit and brutal honesty of gangster rap and the aggressive new-metal of bands such as Limp Bizkit and Korn. The authenticity of popular music groups was really only challenged after The Beatles became famous for singing their own songs (Peterson, p. 1085). The Beatles (whose early work and mania-like fan reception can be seen as very boybandish) are a rare example of a group that was able to showcase their authenticity and immerge triumphantly from a cloud of inauthenticity.

True, the formula behind the creation of The Monkees was much more veiled than that of 1990s boy bands… Case and point… but boy bands mark instances in time where the awareness of inauthenticity by the public does not hinder their commercial success, at least for a few years. Consumers get sick of too much “candy-coated,” “bubble gum” pop over time and performers search for more depth within themselves. Even “haters’” perception changes over time.

Just as the style of a particular boy band can change to fit minor adjustments in the niche market of public over time, the boy band model of formulated and fabricated authenticity in music changes on a larger scale of time. The Monkees emulated the catchy rock sound of other groups of their time such as The Beatles, while 1990s boy bands replicated the blend of R&B, dance, and rock influences that was popular at the time. For more than half of a century, the ebb and flow of this model, like waves, has come for a moment in time, and then left. George Lipsitz is quoted from the book, Footsteps in the Dark:

"In places where the ocean meets the beach, most waves rise, crest, and fall in the space of a few yards. They are visible to the eye for only a few seconds. The life of a wave seems to be short, both spatially and temporally… [but] the short life of waves is an illusion. … Waves appear abruptly and immediately, but they have a long hidden history before the human eye notices them" (Lipsitz, p. vii).

In his book, Lipsitz discusses multiple genres of music beyond popular music and their hidden histories, but boy bands appear to exemplify his philosophy. By the time the boy band wave reaches the stationary, shore-like receiver that is the public, it has already been in production, even as an idea, for some time. Presumably, as an economic "product," it is of no mistake that the two greatest eras of reception of this model occur during the early teenage years of the “baby boomer” generation, and that of their children.

As my exhausting extensive utterance of a blog post comes to a close, I’d like to offer some closing remarks. Through my research of a youth culture that I was once a part of, I have realized its true ingenious combination of industry and aesthetics. I never could have imagined how much there is to this seemingly surface level phenomenon, and I really want to convey that as best I know how to others who presumably feel the same way. Even the timeliness of its arrival (and departure) were crafted to perfection. “In the late 1990s, the pop industry brought in several new artists to revive sagging sales in the wake of grunge” (Mayer, p. 310). This model was so carefully created and extensively received that it’s almost scary. As my interviewee Chris put it, “music from [19]60 to [19]63 was like, “where are we going here???” Then The Beatles…and The Monkees [who] followed in their steps… came along and it was like, “Holy Sh*t!” [The Beatles] had a new Number 1 hit every month and it was ours, no one else’s. But if they came in [19]58, it might not have worked, you know? We needed it.”

If there's anyone out there reading my thoughts here, please leave some comments, and thanks for making it this far. As a reward, I give you this video:


Love,
Doug

"Boy band." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 27 Nov 2007, 07:32 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Nov 2007 [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boy_band&oldid=174091543].

Frith, Simon. “British Popular Music Research.” 1982. IASPM UK Working Paper, No. 1. 1991. Review of The Hidden Musicians by R. Finnegan, in Sociological Review, 39, pp. 199-201.

Hiltbrand, David. "Boy Bands Battle Back for Fans, Respect." LJWorld.Com. 12 Oct. 2007
[http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2004/apr/11/boy_bands_battle/].

Lipsitz, George. Footsteps in the Dark: the Hidden Histories of Popular Music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 2007.

Mayer, Vicki. "Pop Goes the World." Emergencies: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures 11.2 (2001): 309-324. 6 Nov. 2007.

Peterson, Richard A. "In Search of Authenticity." Journal of Management Studies os 42.5 (2005): 1083-1098. 5 Nov. 2007.

Stahl, Matthew. "Authentic Boy Bands on TV? Performers and Impresarios in the Monkees and Making the Band." Popular Music 21.3 (2002): 307-329. JSTOR. 8 Nov. 2007.

Wald, Gayle. ""I Want It That Way": Teenybopper Music and the Girling of Boy Bands." Genders 35 (2002): 1-15. 5 Nov. 2007 [http://www.genders.org].