A Brief History of Boy Bands and Their "Direction" in Modern Society

Something about men singing together just makes people happy. For centuries, men have gathered together to make sweet harmony and win the hearts of ladies all across the globe.


The first known boy band came about in 1321 BC in ancient Egypt. Shown below, Tutankhamun and the Boyz became a huge success domestically as well as throughout the Mediterranean. Here, Tut and his two cohorts can be seen consorting with what we can only surmise are ancient groupies.

Despite having more than a few hits, the band broke up after Tut's untimely death at the tragically young age of 18.

But the harmonious door of melodic men's music had forever been opened and the world witnessed many more bay bands before the present day.

Socrates' Mu Eta Pi (Melody-Harmony-Philosophy) was very popular from 452-446 BC, though constantly attacked for "polluting the minds of young listeners."

The Round Tables were so legendary that some argue that they never actually existed, but are an allegory for what a truly great boy band should be.

Perhaps the most well-known boy band producer of all time was the great circumventor himself, Ferdy Magellan, who managed a handful of Filipino groups during his travels, including Trinidad, The Serranos, and Victoria. However, when other Pacific Islanders were bit by the boy band bug, a rival group, Mactan decided to take out the competition and ended Magellan's career and his life with a bamboo spear to the chest.

In the last few centuries there has been an explosion of interest in the boy bands, including barbershop quartets, Einstein's Bagels, The Beatles, The Jackson 5, The Beach Boys, and New Kids on the Block.

In recent years, however, a troubling trend has taken tendency which is that boy bands are largely using greater number of singers with less harmony. The whole point of the male ensemble is to gather together the single instrument capable of producing the most formants, namely the male voice, and creating music that stirs the soul on both an emotional and a physical level. While sex appeal has always been an added bonus of getting so much musical talent together in one performance, it has now become the focal point of the boy band.

To demonstrate this, I have extracted data from some of the biggest names in boy band lore from the last two decades- Backstreet Boys, Boyz 2 Men, NSYNC, and One Direction. All of these groups fit pretty squarely into the "pop" genre, while some wade out into the waters of hip-hop or R&B.

Consider the following chart which displays the number of voices singing in each section of a song:

This data was taken from all tracks of the listed artists' first (1) and most most recent (2) albums.
Boyz 2 Men's data has been skewed up by 25% to account for their smaller numbers.

All of these groups obviously fall into the pattern of having one member sing a verse and the rest join in for the chorus, a community-feel song form used all over the world. The most stark example of this is Boz 2 Men who rarely sings in harmony during a verse and conversely almost never sings in unison during a chorus. 

I must say that listening through these albums was, in general, a joy. I was especially impressed by NSYNC who, as can be seen, was the group most dedicated to having all of their singers sing! Even during the verses, they would break into 5-part harmony to make cadences even more spectacular, a real throwback to their predecessors, Manhattan Transfer. 

Too cool to stand in the same picture together

The disappointment came, though, while listening to the newcomers, One Direction. Here we have 5 strapping young boys with fantastic voices, and yet I could count on one hand the number of times that they were all singing different notes at the same time! Approximately 30 writers credited on both of their albums and they can't bring themselves to write some duets for verses or rocking harmonies for the choruses? Even a 5-part acapella breakdown bridge would have done, but at the end of two albums I was left wanting. I believe strongly that these boys are capable of singing as I have suggested, so it must be a hiccup with the producers. Don't they realize? Women like men who sing about love, but they go bananas, gaga, what have you, over guys who HARMONIZE about love. 

To sing in unison is to care about yourself in a group; to harmonize is to care about others.

10 Reasons to NOT listen to your music with music majors

As you may know, I recently completed my Bachelor's of Music Education, about which I am very excited. I feel, though, that spending the past years slaving away in an academic field which most people view as recreation has given me a somewhat skewed view of my role as a music listener (although my professors would have me believe that my studies have done just the opposite- straightened out my base, crooked views).

So this post is part explanation, part apology, part soapbox, part experience, and many parts opinion.
Disclaimer: I knock on the digital medium a lot in this post; understand, these are not my feelings, but the supposed opinions of colleagues.

Here's a list of 10 reasons why you may find it infuriating to try to listen to music with a friend who has studied music:



1. If you ask us to listen closely to a song, all we'll hear is the boring harmonic structure.

Virtually all pop music is made up of four chords: I, IV, V, and VI. If you've ever seen the Axis of Awesome's 4 Chord Song, you'll understand how repetitive and over-used these chords are. Sure, you can create some really great music inside this structure, but with a whole world of musical possibilities, why limit yourself?



2. All post-recording digital manipulation is sin (and we think we can hear it)

Ask one of my colleagues about why Glee is no good and they'll go on and on about the decline of vocal technique and producers scrubbing singers' tracks clean until they are little more than a synthesized voice. Sure, our technology allows us to auto-tune singers, but that doesn't make it any more ethical than eating the last brownie and not cleaning the pan.

3. We actually listen to the words

When we're not complaining about poor diction, we're groaning at our friends' evasion "I just like the beat."
And we judge.


4. We sing along with instrumental tracks of make up our own harmonies

So we think One Direction would sound better with a few male voices singing different parts instead of all in unison, big deal. So I like singing along with Cake's trumpet, no sweat.


5. Digital instruments are unacceptable

Drum machine? Get a real drummer. Kenny G sound-alike? Whatever, we know it's a synthesized sax. String quartet behind your punk band? Doubt it, unplug the computer and give a real musician a job.

6. Mediocre singers with excellent poetry don't cut it

This is the reason I miss out on great artists like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Bright Eyes- I can't get past the voice. Maybe that's short-sighted of me, but I'll be the first to admit that I love Dylan covers way more than the originals.







7. We have an opinion on everything and knowledge of nothing

We're the worst kinds of hipsters- we judge the layman's music to be inferior and offer him nothing that he can appreciate because we compare it to "high art." We hear certain indicators of poor musicianship like synthesizers and auto-tuned voices and we stop listening. I don't believe I've even listened to an entire Nicki Manaj song, but I know that every moment would be filled with disdain.


8. After 3 songs of ABABCB form we get bored

Song form- verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Easily the most widely used form in modern music. The reason Maroon 5's "Hands All Over" album wasn't that great.







9. We will not rest until we figure out that modulation/multi-meter/modal section/etc.

See piano bridge in Muse's "United States of Eurasia" (Egyptian modal scale?)


10. and this is the kicker, We mistakenly believe that we enjoy music more than others

"That's right, I know more about music, so I have a greater capacity to appreciate it." I'm going to call shenanigans and say that's not true. Yes, I hear a lot of things when I listen to music and can even understand it at a "higher" level, but I think if we were to measure endorphins produced (brain's happiness peptide) by groups who have studied music and those that haven't, I believe they would be approximately the same across the board. Who am I to say that I feel greater happiness while listening to a really awesome choir sing Whitaker than some teeny-bopper listening to some lame Kesha anthem? When it comes right down to it, we all listen to what we enjoy and I'm pretty certain that we all enjoy it the same.