Over the past 30 years music has changed a lot. We've seen the rise and fall of many genres of music, many artists come and go. In fact the only act to have a UK Top 40 hit in both 1988 and 2018 so far is Kylie Minogue. But there has been one other constant the majority of that time, the boyband.
But is the boyband still a thing? We had a boyband win the X Factor for the first time last year and time will tell if they become successful, but aside from that there is little else out there at the moment.
Tomorrow will mark 30 years since Bros were at number one with "I Owe You Nothing". This was their third number one with their first two hits reaching number two including the main song they're remembered for, "When Will I Be Famous". Some may argue that they weren't a boyband because they formed of their own accord and played their own instruments. However not all boybands are manufactured and some do play instruments. Besides, the instruments they did play were bass and drums, every song had other instruments on them. Then Craig the bassist left so they became a vocalist and a drummer.
The demise of Bros coincided with the rise of New Kids on the Block. This was a more familiar look of future boybands, basically a vocal group without the singing ability of older vocal groups such as the Four Tops. They first hit the UK charts with the number one "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" at the end of 1989 and had the first number one of the 90s with "Hangin Tough". After releasing what seemed like a new single every week throughout 1990, all top tens, they were pretty much finished by 1991.
The end of 1991 brought us what was intended to be the British equivalent of New Kids on the Block, Take That. Their debut hit "Promises" only made number 38 though and their next single "Once You've Tasted Love" failed to reach the Top 40. Although they were clearly popular in 1992 they didn't make number one until 1993 with "Pray". After this though they only failed to make number one once before their break up in 1996.
Meanwhile Take That had another boyband giving them a run for their money, East 17. Whilst Bros and New Kids on the Block weren't the only boybands of their era, nobody could really rival them in the same way East 17 rivalled Take That. If Take That were the Boyz II Men of the pop world then East 17 were the Jodeci i.e. the bad boys of the pop world. They only managed one number 1 with "Stay Another Day" but had plenty of top tens and were sitting at number 3 in the charts at the start of 1997 with "Hey Child" when their glory days came to an abrupt end following Brian Harvey's comments on Ecstasy.
By this point though there was another boyband who had made their mark on the charts, Boyzone. This was a group intended to be the Irish Take That and they hit the ground running making number two with their debut "Love Me For a Reason". Like the band they were modelled on, they had to wait almost two years for their first number one "Words". The success of Boyzone was perhaps overlooked because of the bigger success of the Spice Girls, but their chart record in their heyday reads 6 number ones, 6 number twos, 3 number threes and a number four. The formula which has since been described by Boyzone creator Louis Walsh is Ronan Keating and Stephen Gately were chosen to sing, the rest were chosen to make up the numbers.
There were a number of boybands charting with various degrees of success in the late 90s. From the UK we had 5ive and 911 and from the USA we had Backstreet Boys and N Sync. 5ive were perhaps the most successful of these with two number ones and the rest of their hits making the top ten. Like East 17 before them they were the bad boys of pop but they were never really considered to be rivals to Boyzone.
In 1999 when Boyzone unofficially came to an end, a younger version of Boyzone came about, Westlife. Chart wise they would become the most successful boyband of all time scoring 14 number ones, only Elvis and the Beatles have managed more. When the only member most non-Westlife fans knew, Bryan McFadden, left in 2004 they still managed two number ones and a bunch of top tens. The first time they failed to reach the top five was in 2008 with the number 8 "Us Against the World" and the first time they failed to reach the top ten was their final single "Lighthouse" in 2011.
A number of boybands came and went during the Westlife era. A1 started out at a similar time and scored two number ones. Towards the end of their time they tried to move away from the boy band tag by playing instruments and their final hit "Make it Good" became their first hit not to reach the top ten and that was the end of them.
Blue came about in 2001 and lasted until 2004 scoring three number ones and failing to reach the top ten once.
In 2002 the boyband formula started to move away from what we had been used to for over a decade. Along came the Blazin Squad who were probably best described as pops answer to the So Solid Crew having a ridiculous number of members and rapping badly and lasted until 2004. We also had Busted, a boyband with guitars but no drummer. They never failed to reach the top three scoring four number ones from eight singles. Their time came to an end in 2004 when band member Charlie Simpson left the group because he wanted to be taken seriously as a musician.
With the demise of Blue, Blazin Squad and Busted in 2004, it was time for another boyband to rival Westlife to appear on the scene, McFly. Whilst many people remember McFly, few realise how good their chart record was. If acts to score 7 or more number ones was a question on Pointless then McFly would be a good bet. They scored 7 number ones from their first 12 hits, the final one coming in 2007 with "Baby's Coming Back/Transylvania". Their chart run continued until 2013, then in 2014 they joined forces with Busted to form McBusted.
In 2009 a boy band who failed to win the X Factor came about, JLS. They scored a number one with their first two singles "Beat Again" and "Everybody in Love" and managed five number ones with their first eight singles, the final one coming in 2011 with "She Makes Me Wanna". They continued until 2013 but their popularity was clearly in decline chart wise after 2011.
This is probably because another boy band who failed to win the X Factor came about in 2011, One Direction. The UK Singles Chart has always been the obvious way to measure the success of a boyband and given how big One Direction seemed to be, one would expect most of their singles to get to number one. However they only managed four, not bad but surprisingly few for the biggest boyband for half a decade.
Since One Direction went on hiatus in 2015 though, there has been no boyband to fill their shoes. There have been many less successful boybands in the last 30 years I haven't mentioned, including during the One Direction era, but since 2015 even the boybands in the lower reaches of the Top 40 don't seem to be there.
Take That had hits in both 2016 and 2017 but given Howard Donald is 50 and Gary Barlow and Mark Owen are in their late 40s you can't really call them a boyband anymore. In fact since they reunited in 2005 they have been described as a man band.
In 2017 we had Latin boyband CNCO chart in collaboration with Little Mix but arguably it was the inclusion of Little Mix that made it chart in this country. Then there was X Factor winners Rak Su who charted at the end of the year. In 2018 so far there has been nothing.
Bands like 5 Seconds of Summer and the Vamps have been described by some as a boyband, but these bands say they are not and it's because of their young female audience that they're described as being boybands. Maybe that's why there are no boybands anymore, their target audience has moved on to other things so the demand is no longer there.
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