What do you get when you add together five pretty guys, sappy lyrics and the simplest possible beats? You get a boy band. Just when we all thought the days of *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees were over, One Direction makes their debut.
The English/Irish boy band was formed in the seventh season of The X Factor, a televised British music competition. Members Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Harry Styles all applied as single contestants for the show but didn’t qualify for the “Boys” grouping. The five were formed into a band, as suggested by judge Nicole Scherzinger, and then qualified for the “Groups” category. The band came in third place and their song, “Forever Young” was leaked onto the Internet. After the show, the group (now dubbed One Direction) signed a two-million pound (about three-million dollar) contract with Syco Records. They released their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful,” on September 11, 2011. It displayed on the UK Singles Chart at number one with over one hundred thousand sales within the first week. The band released their second single, “Gotta Be You,” in November 2011, which peaked at number three. The second single was followed by One Direction’s first studio album Up All Night, which debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. In September 2011, the band announced their UK tour, the Up All Night Tour, which sold out in a matter of minutes. One Direction also revealed that they would be touring the U.S. After another single, “One Thing,” One Direction signed a record deal with Columbia Records in the U.S. The band is still going strong with performances on the Today Show and The Kids’ Choice Awards. They are also set to appear on Saturday Night Live and an episode of iCarly.
In America there is a huge demand for this kind of music. One Direction is in the first stages of its career where every song compliments a girl. Like all boy bands, One Direction is mass-produced. They perform and make appearances in coordinated outfits. Their hair is artfully moussed into a messy mop of bedhead. Their sound is like fluffy pop music with some electronic beats thrown in for an edge. They meet the major boy band requirement of having boyish good looks with their bright eyes and straight, white smiles.
Despite the group’s recent successes and meeting all the boy band standards, I don’t believe that they’re capable of creating the mass spectacle that the boy bands of the ’90s generated. Fueled by the overexposure of acts such as Madonna and Duran Duran, the early ’90s turned to more bitter genres such as grunge, gangsta rap and alternative. With the arrival of *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, a new wave of teeny boppers was born. The bubble gum stylings and songs about puppy love and heartbreak made thirteen-year-old girls and advertisers across the world scream in joy.
To most companies, boy bands equal dollar signs. Corporations like Pepsi and Nickelodeon flocked towards these groups to help them sell their products, and these boy bands generated a lot of merchandising power. The ’90s was also a time when channels like MTV and VH1 actually played music. TRL was in its heyday and had its finger on the pulse of the pop culture industry.
The music industry is not dependent on television anymore. Today, everything is produced quickly to keep up with the fast-paced society in which we live. Everyone wants to become rich and famous quickly. Becoming a “celebrity” today is as easy as clicking upload. Send a video to MTV of a person acting stupidly and chances are that that person will appear on the next season of Jersey Shore. I’m not saying that the members of One Direction are idiots, but they are a perfect example of the phrase “overnight sensation.” Yes, the band members may be cute. Yes, their music may be catchy. However, catchy is not synonymous with timeless.
