Remember high school? It was good times. "Home work", part-time jobs, melodrama and skipping classes. But do you remember the soundtrack to all that?
In hindsight, trawling through popular music during that five year era is a veritable pantheon of pablum. Or more bluntly, it was a barren wasteland of musical talent. Think about what high school kids listen to today: Beyonce? Jay-z? Kanye? Panic at the Disco? Fall Out Boy?
These are actual BANDS! Artists! Compared to that, some of the crap being peddled to us in high school was downright absurd. I'm not bitter though, because at the very least it helps our generation identify with a completely unique era in pop-culture history. Morbid as it may be.
Sure, we all remember it as a time when boy bands (and to a lesser extent, girl bands and a seven member co-ed band) ruled the world. And yes, the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are still to this day remembered somewhat fondly and with nostalgic relevance.
But what about all those other boy bands? I figured it'd be fun to take a stroll down memory lane. You probably have forgotten all these songs. Until now. I apologize, but... really. This stuff was popular once? It's a post that really just writes itself. Enjoy.
2gether
Technically, I think these guys were a a television show and not an actual band. Also, they were created to make fun of boy bands. Ironically, in their irony, they were one of my favourite boy bands.
3deep
Even 2gether had 2 hit songs. 3deep, despite being numerically superior, had only one. That's how bad they were. Even when it comes to bad music, Canada had an inferiority complex. Mostly, I remember wanting to start a band called 4shallow, just to show them up. That is all.
B44
Not only is the song incredibly perverted, but the three dudes look like child molesters in training, suffering from scurvy. Also, doesn't it seem implicitly racist to portray a black child playing with toys from a garbage can on the street? Either he's poor, or hallucinating from tainted meth. Perverts AND bigots. Yikes.
5ive
I only included them because they completed my pattern and also happened to be a one hit wonder. I only regret there wasn't a band with the number one in its name. I couldn't find the real video, which I recall takes place in a bowling alley
O-town
Created from the 'Making of the Band' tv show, their most popular song was one originally made famous by Westlife... another boy band. But Westlife was British, so apparently they don't count, and it's OK to pooch their act. BSB purists note: this is essentially the 'Get Down' video, except with less colour.
LFO
Stands for Lyte-Funky-Ones. References include Abercrombie, Footloose and... Family Ties?? There's no way they wrote this song. They can't possibly know who Alex Keaton is. It's actually pretty meta that they sing about that time back when New Kids on the Block was popular. One day, I am sure, no one will ever write a song about when LFO was popular.
The Moffats
I actually saw them live once. They were doing a gig at Playdium while I happened to be there. To be fair to them, at least these kids played instruments and wrote songs. They were just really bad. One of the brothers ended up in a band with one of my university friends' friend doing some sort of prog-rock thing in Boston. No, really.
Dudez A-Plenti
To anyone who thinks Andy Sanberg is original, I present exhibit A: Conan was pulling that shit way before that Natalie Portman stealing asshole wrote Lazy Sunday. To be honest though, Lazer Cats is some sort of epic bad assness. Props where deserved.
Dudez a-Plenti
I dedicate this post in loving memory of the YTV Hitlist.
1 comment:
lol, amazing
"if there's 5 of them... shouldn't they be called 5gether?"
hahahaha
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