Where Did All The Boy Bands Go?

The other day my friends and I were talking about our favorite things from the 90s.  My favorite element of the 90s’ pop culture is a no-brainer; the boy bands. Whatever happened to all those precious boy bands? You know, the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, O-Town, and of course my favorite *NSYNC! It’s like they all disappeared over night. They’re somewhat like pop culture dinosaurs now- completely extinct, but their CDs are still buried in the closets of former teenyboppers everywhere.

Boy bands from the 90s’ were pretty much all the same. None were any better than the other, all of their music all sounded the same, and they usually did a synchronized dance on a cheesy music video. Here is the formula of a typical boy band from the 90s: the good-looking lead singer who usually had the big personality and frosted hair; the cutesy shy one; the rebel that usually sported a few tattoos on his muscular arms; the ugly one that acts goofy and talks the most, but ironically everyone always forgets he’s in the band; and then there’s the one that looks too old to be in a boy band, however he’s usually a favorite with the moms.

The two most popular boy bands were *Nsync and the Backstreet Boys. Some might say they were rival boy bands. No girl could ever be a loyal devoted fan of both *Nsync and the Backstreet Boys. It’s like baseball; you can’t be a Yankee fan and a Red Sox fan, too… The universe would explode. I, for one, was Team *Nsync. If I ever heard a girl say that the Backstreet Boys were better than *Nsync, I would always be the one to speak up and passionately defend my boys.

 I can remember my friend and I would spend hours in front of the mirror, singing into a hairbrush, and perfecting our choreographed dance to “Bye Bye Bye”. The walls of my bedroom were covered with *Nsync posters and I even had a bed set with all the band members printed on it. One of my fondest memories from the 90’s was when I attended my first *Nsync concert (my first concert in general), and I thought I died and had gone to teenybopper heaven.

 Every girl had a favorite member of a boy band; the one she would fantasize bringing to the school dance, and then eventually marrying them. Of course my favorite member of *Nsync was JC Chasez, “the cutesy shy one.” Many girls loved Justin Timberlake, but I thought he was just cocky and loud. There were times I really thought I would meet JC one day, and become Mrs. JC Chasez. 

So where did these teen heartthrobs go? Well, these boys are not boys anymore- they’re men. In fact, most of them are now husbands and fathers, and too old to be singing and dancing around stage for young teenage girls. Today, boy bands are extinct, and pop music is slowly fading away due to the popularity of Hip Hop and other fresh modern music genres. Many people might think boy bands from the 90’s were just a bunch of cheesy, goof-ball, teenage boys with hardly any talent; But, not me. Boy bands from the 1990’s were once the hottest thing on the market. They were loved by billions of girls all over the world. And yes, they have been the butt of many jokes; however, they are still the ones laughing all the way to the bank.