One Direction
Firewire, joe199998293, Kazanne, Sophiee

Get out.

Jackson 5

-didn't vote them because I didn't see them on the poll-

I think JLS are among the best. Fantastic singing, fantastic dancing, and they are the only successful group to come from the X Factor who were formed prior to the show; that is to say, they weren't put together in auditions like One Direction were. They launched in a time when there were no boy bands on the scene, unless you count Take That reuniting but that's very different... and new boybands followed in their wake (The Wanted, One Direction, Lawson, Union J...) to fill up the market. Seriously underrated. Their music never really evolved all that much, I think they could have come back with a maturer sound and focused more on harmonies and realigned themselves with an older audience but instead they chose to call it a day which I think is just as admirable... not many bands manage to last as long as they did, have their level of success and keep it together...

in fairness the early beatles albums, especially Please Please Me is very boybandy
and this is coming from a MASSIVE beatles fan

Sorry to wade in to the earlier argument, but I personally wouldn't class The Beatles or any of the others who play instruments as 'boybands'.

For me, a boyband is a collection of boys, manufactured or not, who don't play instruments.

Beatles and the beach boys <3

Yeah, I wouldn't go around saying "The Beatles are a boy band"; however they did inspire all subsequent acts who are known as boy bands and are often referred to as the 'original boy band' for all of the reasons I mentioned on the previous page; but either way this was a poll I made at work because I was bored and it doesn't mean anything :P

Beatles

The Beatles are not a boy band, what an insult
But if the criteria for being a boy band is having screaming teenage girls following them about, then you would also have to put The Rolling Stones in their early days in.

Also what about the new romantics, with bands such as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet?
Both had far bigger followings of screaming teenage girls than most on that list.

No Bros either

The max for poll options is 25. And yeah all of those mentioned work on that level too, was just listing the Beatles because they sparked the boy band phenomenon; Jackson 5 sparked the whole 'all members sing and dance' thing and Monkees were the first instance of manufacturing a band to capitalise on the teenage girl market - all of those elements now factor into forming a boy band. I'm not saying any of those ARE boy bands per se, I just included them because they were the 'forefathers' of what boybands are nowadays. They all regularly get mentions whenever people discuss this sort of thing so I don't see what's wrong with including them - it's not meant to be an insult, it's just a poll...

I would say that The Beatles were the original BoyBand tbh

Girls were screaming at Elvis long before the Beatles come on the scene

Elvis wasn't part of a band though, he was one guy.

I found this to be a good read

http://www.opiniongiver.com/2013/02/...-boy-band.html

Elvis Presley and The Jordanaires, that's a band in my book

Elvis was a solo artist, of course he had a band who played with him but he was a solo artist. Who ever refers to Elvis as Elvis and the Jordanaires? I never even heard that name until just now

It's only retrospectively become an "insult" to refer to them as a boy band... it's just an observation, and clearly one that a lot of other people have noticed too. It's the whole cult of personality built around them as individuals, more than anything. If we were to compare them to more contemporary examples:

The Beatles = McFly - known for making their own music with crossover appeal to the pop market, legions of fans who have stuck by them for years, and each member individually has achieved things outside of the band to build names for themselves as individuals as well as a group. They're a boy band, but in a different sense to what the term is usually applied to.

The Jackson 5 = Pussycat Dolls. Obviously a bit different (opposite genders; being a singing band rather than singers/dancers; being good rather than being Nicole Scherzinger) but the comparison is obvious. One breakout star fronting a concept with very little emphasis on the rest of the group members, but they all play their part and bring something new to the table as a unit. For the Jackson 5, it was that they were a black family band who all sang, played instruments, and introduced choreography into their performances; with Michael being the lead singer and obvious solo star. The Pussycat Dolls brought the idea of a burlesque group turned pop act to pop music. Some of the members weren't singers, they were dancers, but they were marketed as a group with a powerhouse singer who could also dance really well too. Nicole, like Michael, was obviously a solo star in the making but needed that initial push to break into the public conscience.

The Monkees = S Club 7. The TV shows introduced a fever pitch of fandom and the music came along with it. Entirely engineered by a producer in order to fill a gap in the market, both groups became internationally famous thanks to their television programs and musical careers and both are still very much remembered for what they achieved even years after they ceased to exist as entities.