A Guide to Boy Bands

Are they original? Yeah. Are they sexual? Absolutely. And they’re still everything you need. Welcome to a celebration of boy bands—and a close look at the dizzying heights (and crushing lows) they’ve reached.

Everyone has their favourite boy band and their favourite member. Is yours the heartthrob, the cute one, or the bad boy? (By pop law, every boy band also has to include an older-brother figure and a shy one.) And while every generation has ushered in its own unique take on what a boy band looks like, there’s one moment in time that proved the almighty, electric power of a group of men singing, dancing and dressing in unison unlike any other. The early ’90s to the early 2000s was a golden age, led in the US by Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC and B2K; in the UK by Take That, East 17 and Five; and in Ireland by Boyzone and Westlife. This was an era of perfect harmonies and unabashed pop; of tightly coiled choreography and spine-tingling ballads (performed on stools and in colour-block outfits, of course). There were rivalries (you weren’t supposed to like Take That and East 17, ditto Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC), as well as groups for every personality (Five, for example, were designed for those who wanted “attitude and edge” (so said the original casting call) from their boy band). The members—often discovered by labels and music moguls via adverts in local newspapers—were talented, handsome and young, the kind of men you wanted to be with or just be. And for a while, they were unstoppable. “Musically, it was sort of a reflection of what was happening in society,” recalls Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter on the band’s 2020 Apple Music show, All I Have to Give Radio. “We were happy, the world was happy, people were happy. It did come at the right time.” Perhaps, but the golden age was also the product of a long line of all-male groups who’d been laying the foundations for decades—and all before anyone had even uttered the words “boy band”.

The story of boy bands is generally thought to have begun in the 1930s, with the emergence of barbershop quartets—all-male groups who sang four-part, a cappella harmonies. Then came doo-wop bands, crafting songs with close harmonies, vocal rhythms and lyrics about love in a style that would influence Motown groups such as The Temptations and Four Tops. And it was out of Motown that another early model emerged. Jackson 5, with their watertight harmonies and dance routines, had all the components of a modern boy band, including one of the most essential: screaming and mostly female fans. Jacksonmania wasn’t the first instance of such adoration. In the ’60s, The Beatles inspired unprecedented levels of worship with their good looks and swoon-inducing hits about love. And whether the Fab Four—a band who wrote their own songs, played instruments and didn’t dance—can strictly be described as a boy band is debatable, but they unquestionably set the blueprint for boy band fandom forever after. “All of those [bands] that reached a certain place, they’re the fans’ football team,” as Robbie Williams put it during a conversation with Zane Lowe in November 2022. “It’s a young girls’, primarily, football team.” By the late ’70s and ’80s, all-male groups were becoming impossible to resist, whether via Menudo—one of the biggest Latin boy bands of all time—or British all-male acts like Wham! and Spandau Ballet. But it was two Boston-born groups who really set the final template for modern boy bands: New Edition—the R&B band formed in 1978 as a “new edition” of Jackson 5—and New Kids On the Block, conceived six years later by ex-New Edition manager Maurice Starr, grimly, as a white version. Both proved inspirational for managers (Backstreet Boys and Take That, for example, were modelled on NKOTB), as well as for future stars. “I saw [New Kids On the Block] on a Saturday morning TV show probably in 1985 or ’88 and went into school the next day and was like, ‘Did anyone see that?’” remembers Williams. “And they were like, ‘Fuck off, that’s for girls.’ But there is still a special spark in my heart for New Kids On the Block.”

Almost as long as all-male bands have existed, so too has our fascination with watching them on screen. Take The Monkees, the 1966 NBC sitcom following a Beatles-inspired fictional band of the same name—one of the first manufactured pop groups (nickname: the Prefab Four). Decades later, boy bands and TV continued to be a match made in heaven. In 2009, for example, after signing with Disney’s Hollywood Records in 2007, Jonas Brothers starred in their own sitcom Jonas, reality TV series Living the Dream, 2008 movie Camp Rock (and sequel Camp Rock 2), among other things. (Later, British Irish band The Wanted and 3T, made up of the sons of Jackson 5’s Tito Jackson, also let the cameras in.) But TV isn’t only a way to get as close as possible to your beloved boy band; it’s also proven a powerful tool for discovering them. Enter the reality TV contest—and one of the biggest boy bands of all time. In 2010, on the seventh season of The X Factor in the UK, judges Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh sensed that five solo contestants—Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne—weren’t strong enough to make it on their own, but could be magical together. One Direction didn’t win the show, but that hardly mattered: they reached heights unseen since the golden age—perhaps even since Beatlemania—with no choreography but plenty of zesty bops, sweet ballads and cheeky videos that spoke to the every woman (“You’ve never loved your stomach or your thighs/The dimples in your back at the bottom of your spine/But I’ll love them endlessly,” went 2012’s “Little Things”). And with the first great boy band of the internet era came a brand-new breed of fan obsession. Directioners were devoted, assembling on social media to forensically document 1D’s every move—including, but not limited to, the exact spot Styles once vomited by the side of the road—and even composing fan fiction about their idols (who can forget Larry Stylinson, the strange story about a supposed secret relationship between Styles and Tomlinson?). This wasn’t just fan culture, it was stan culture—and for many Directioners, it felt like community.

In 2023, BTS’ youngest member Jung Kook attempted to sum up what being in the band feels like. “Is it heaven?” he wondered to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I don’t know. In any case, it’s just so, so, so, so good. It’s so great to be singing as an artist in that space with all these people who are cheering me on.” “All these people” is a modest way of describing the reach BTS have achieved. But while they stand as the planet’s most famous K-pop boy band, RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook certainly weren’t the first. That story began on 11 April 1992, when a trio called Seo Taiji and Boys performed “Nan Arayo” (“I Know”) on a national TV contest. Blending US hip-hop, new jack swing, rock and Korean lyrics—with side helpings of dance moves and plenty of swagger—“Nan Arayo” became a runaway hit and K-pop’s effective starting gun. In the trio’s wake, entertainment agencies began to assemble “idol groups” of prodigiously talented young men via rigorous auditions, the successful ones then put through just as rigorous training in everything from singing and dancing to etiquette. Featuring more members, more musical influences and more precision than any boy band who came before them, K-pop groups—from early pioneers H.O.T. to SEVENTEEN, SUPER JUNIOR and EXO—have proven unstoppable forces and one of their country’s greatest cultural exports. But none have scaled greater heights than BTS (who are currently on a break to allow members to undertake military service, with a reunion slated for 2025). The band was formed in 2010 by K-pop impresario Bang Si-hyuk and, like many (K-pop) boy bands, they sing, dance and dress alike. But BTS don’t just follow the rulebook. Designed as an antidote to pressures on K-pop groups and their teenage fans, their music reflects “real” (and often taboo) subjects including self-love, relationships and mental health (as well as the occasional Jungian or Nietzschean idea). Their fans too have raised the bar. ARMY (aka “Adorable Representative MC for Youth”) don’t just root for their idols, they also rally around social issues, fight against systemic racism and drive donations to charity via social media hashtags and campaigns. It’s a loyalty that’s felt keenly within the group. “Between BTS and ARMY, I don’t know who’s following who,” said Jung Kook. “Maybe BTS is following ARMY or ARMY is following BTS. There’s this very special bond and also a sense of depending on one another. I want to have authentic and comfortable conversations with ARMY. There’s a line a singer shouldn’t cross with the fans. Of course, I won’t cross that line. But [it’s] just like a friend you can talk to about anything.”

There’s one word every boy band fan dreads: “hiatus”. Because, eventually, almost every successful band embarks on one, when the pressure gets too intense, the schedule too relentless and the group’s dynamics too strained. Some stars have been uncompromising about the darker side of global pop fame, reporting eating disorders, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, panic attacks and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Few are more damning than Williams. “I was 16. I wasn’t ready for all of this shit. And that mixed with what happened as you’re growing up with this extreme fame sort of causes a huge collision,” he told Zane Lowe. “I’m sure in five or 10 years time, if you sit down with One Direction, they’re all going to have their ‘isms’ that [have] been caused by this machine.” Others just want to know who they are beyond that machine. And while multiple stars might attempt to launch a solo career, generally only one boy band member gets to make it big. Harry Styles, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Ricky Martin and George Michael among them, having exited the biggest boy bands of all time to become some of pop’s enduring superstars. Time apart, though, can make for a better future. “I think it was really important for us to take that time away from each other,” Joe Jonas told Zane Lowe when the band reunited in 2019, having split in 2013 following their 2011 hiatus. “You don’t think about growing up like every single day, the same set of friends, in school together, on stage together. We needed that six years to say like, ‘What’s life like without you all the time?’ We grew so much individually to come back together.”

At this point, there’s almost no template for boy bands. There have been pop bands, R&B bands, pop-punk and pop-rock bands, boy bands who play instruments, boy bands who don’t dance and even country boy bands (see Canada’s Emerson Drive or Nashville’s Restless Road and On the Outside). And, in the form of BROCKHAMPTON, a hip-hop boy band. Founded in 2010 by Kevin Abstract via a Kanye West forum, BROCKHAMPTON were more a DIY collective in the vein of Odd Future than a traditional boy band, featuring an intentionally diverse lineup of members and roles (vocalists, producers, but also a graphic designer, photographer and web designer). With their intrepid pop-rap sound, BROCKHAMPTON upended ideas about rap groups and boy bands—and flung the door open to the future. More recently, though, rising boy bands have found success by colouring a little closer to the lines. Take Elevator Boys, the German five-piece going viral on social media with their very ’90s aesthetic; No Guidnce, the rising UK four-piece who broke out in 2023 with their fresh take on nostalgic R&B; or WANMOR, the R&B brother group whose father is Boyz II Men’s Wanyá Morris. And whatever the future of boy bands might look like, one thing is certain: We will never stop loving the boy bands of the past—or stop rooting for our favourites. It’s what’s made it so easy for so many to reunite decades on from their heyday, whether Backstreet Boys, B2K, New Kids On the Block or Take That, who last year released their Americana-leaning ninth record This Life and declared themselves in a better place than ever. Because boy bands are our football teams—and a portal back to another time. As Omarion put it in conversation with Apple Music’s Ebro, at the time of B2K’s 2019 comeback, “It’s not just a show. It’s people going back to remember what they were doing at that time. It’s more like a ritual.”