Fruitless tree starting january fourteenth on d w. Welcome to the nineteen nineties the cold war is history new technologies are changing the world in creating opportunities for innovations and a colorful variety in pop culture dance culture and alternative lifestyles while pushing their way into the mainstream a one hundred twenty beats per minute. Cant complain Courtney Love and britpop with changing rap music for good hip hop it conquered the world and the liberal spirit of the decade came to an abrupt end with the attacks on nine eleven this is a look back on the days when cute boys and girls cost a spell on teenagers everywhere welcome to the ninetys boy bands and girl groups. After months of speculation and use that every take that had been dreading the most successful band of the decade splitting up. As it was really terrible i had a friend who was also a big take that fan and we cried. Then we sat in front of the radio and recorded it on tape because there was this big interview. And great he said it is going to be a last album from today. Is no will. Be on but we even set up an emergency hotline at bravo magazine because kids were calling and saying they were going to kill themselves that there really were two or three girls who killed themselves because tate got it split down. Take that in the ninetys they were at the top of a gigantic wave of boy and girl plans the man just a bass group of five had a massive teenage following turned over tidy profits and kept the press on it and their diehard fans of remained true to this day. As ive got photos from every american scene and every country i could get them from. At some point tide connected so much my mother gave me a big bag and said that if i didnt sort it out she threw it all away. From i knew of course you daydream when you. Take that knew that too and sat down to develop a fan base by performing at schools in one thousand nine hundred another boy band still ruled the worlds big stages. A. New kids on the block from the United States they were enjoying huge commercial success and operating a carefully managed merchandising machine. They even surpassed the superstars of the eightys like madonna Whitney Houston prince. And Michael Jackson michael. Michael jackson was the biggest influence on the boy bands since they all combine music singing and choreographed dance routines but for a fans of them would be on stage doing what Michael Jackson did as a one man show. There wouldnt be boy bands if it werent for Michael Jackson. The king of pop first achieved success himself as part of a boy band the jackson five as a solo artist he laid the foundation for the ultimate Entertainment Experience challenge conventional ideas about masculinity and femininity as did many of his fellow pop artists by the end of the eightys gender. Gave way to cute boys in the saloon. With the new wave of boy bands starting with new kids on the block and Going Forward there was a lot more kind of sexual directness. Its been taken off bodies being shown i think the big influence you know generally that culture had got more and more explicit about sharing back flash people like bobby brown these new much more raunchy r. And b. Styles and rap styles did show a fair so well muscled kind of physiques offered up for the enjoyment of female fans and also i. Found as well. I. Definitely trained as sex symbols you know tops coming off you know im paying all that kind of stuff for the while so it was a whole show it was the dancing it was. It was the looks it was the clothing it was the moves and the songs that. You know. Night live in every way was very gay video because we got purple it somewhere in cut off top scene stuff. When you look back on some of those boy bands in the ninetys like they look really gay right but that was a time where. People didnt know you know people didnt think boy george was gay in the eightys people didnt think George Michael was gay. And you look at where im now youre like what those obviously gay you know you have you know take that youre looking very effeminate doing great. People didnt translate that as being. In one nine hundred ninety three boys appeared on irelands biggest late night show without a song all record deal but plenty of hot moves and no shortage of sex appeal. Going to look forward to hearing from you when youre famous. But it wasnt done skills that made them famous lead singer Ronan Keating distinctive voice is what catapulted boys on to the top of the chops. But there was one thing that they werent allowed to mention at the beginning band member Stephen Gately was gay. And yet it was the gay and lesbian clubs in large cities that provided the path express full fledgling boy bands and girl groups what went over well then i would also catch on with the mainstream londons legend. Club posted them all. Dressed in leather perform for an adult audience for the first time. Zone and westlife did shows that. We used to perform quite regularly its just a great night its a really fun but it was the one night we could perform and that i heard. Because you know most games youre taking taking it seriously. You know youre kind of conscious of whats going on but the something about why its such a part of the audience is just everybodys drinking everybodys having for. But the Gay Community was any targeted on officially the official target group was a completely different one. Girls lose their minds coming this wave hello and that scream is deafening you just you know stop and you know and it will just be screaming i remember some of the reviews from some of our shows the reviewers used to get upset because they would say you know were going to give the show a bad review because the screaming was so loud we couldnt hear the music to actually review it. We got to perform with take that and they were huge at the time and i remember traveling from our hotel we were going to do a show manchester and they had to travel in up trucks and we were like these limousine cars and their fans thought that we were them because you couldnt see inside they were shaking. We will regret the second letter. So for the next show as we said we were riding tracks like take back the kids theyre going to kill us. Screaming and swinging girls were already doing that in the beatles era. The teeny boppers could integrate the boys on stage into their dream worlds which are free of sexual marital obligations a place where fantasies and run wild. From the middle of the sixtys you still get these groups theres a sort of con of them on there particularly with the teen age and preteen family audience for these sort of bands like somewhere between. Pets and sex objects you know its like an early experimentation with ideas of love and romance and concerts but very so sorry for a girl who may not be allowed to have a boyfriend could have her imaginary bravery in dealey is from all one and have posters up in parts around his face and you know and go see him in concert and parents dont feel weird about it because hes there and shes here and her scream as long as he wants. But for many fans the boys represent more than just pin ups on the wall they are companions who accompany them through a tumultuous time in their lives. A lot of our fans and especially now as they are adults and they come to ash and they tell us about how they felt when i would seen them since we may not be you know you two and their music doesnt sort of change the world but the one thing we do to him and we did was that when they have to really difficult times and when they got into their teenage years and those years can be very emotional and very difficult i think we can give them a lot. You can really get brawls no no no its just teddy bears for us from why here even today from fallacies they say youre my first love ive got such fond memories of the time the band i would come home from school. I had a boring day or something was troubling me i would put your music on and just lie on my bad and the songs were just it was almost like healing songs would wash over me and it made me just. But in somewhere else. I would have passed on that many didnt understand why young girls like us were wild about it even some of the girls didnt understand that which is just on me to hear that i had thing going in contrast to boys their age girls are more bound to the household thats true today but even more so in the ninetys girls have to help out around the house they cant stay out as late in the evening arent even allowed to go out on their own as much as their male counterparts and generally have less access to the potential sources that could allow them to acquire a certain amount of selfconfidence and even toward society and when young girls do go out often theyre not taken very seriously or given much attention groups gather to let off emotional stadium boys want to play football and girls go to a Backstreet Boys concert i think girls is and should be taken more seriously they shouldnt be dismissed as swoon as who obsess over pop stars we dont do that to male soccer fans and no one laughs at them when they sing their fan songs and yell and scream in. The Entertainment Industry didnt mind the kids had money to spend and it offered them plenty of ways to spend it. Boy bands are perfect bite they spring up like mushrooms imo even join forces with the competition like the french band and the irish band boy zone twice the fun and twice the profits boy bands are an International Money making machine and their fans a loyal following with purchasing power. Things balance was it was. A relatively prosperous time there was the economy did recover it did it was filtering down and so everyone has a lot more. Money and including teens and preteens you know theyve actually got a lot spending power has a huge potential there to make money not just with selling the records but with all the merchandise all the kind of spinoffs movies d. V. D. s thing much and dice has always been around just to hit new levels and new heights in the ninetys when when people knew that they could release one song and have three different. Versions of it just by changing the cover and i mean you know all five of your five boys in the bangi you got a single with five different faces hell five. I mean that thats taking it to the extreme yeah i think then you have people jump on the bandwagon that you had like the dolls and we had howard those wins he had capri sun drinks while to populate the bed sheets underway and sunglasses and not it was it was a massive explosion to really capitalize i mean it pillai as much as you could to make money in. The ninetys are high on the new economy the digital age made room for new markets internet start ups have the stock market booming multimedia products are created for a childs play be it video games or tamagotchis and the Entertainment Industry turned its attention to girls. America ive heard of there was a noticeable push of products onto the market is specially targeted to girls if you take girls magazines for example there are all sorts of new publications in the ninetys like brigade to young miss magazines with a lot of content related to the cosmetics and Fashion Industries consumerism was promoted as a lifestyle in those magazines then there were also t. V. Shows that revolver go around the software lies ation of women. Yet as i put it with female protagonists were in the foreground on shows like clueless. Then there were novels like Bridget Jones diary these characters were incredibly independent had jobs usually in the Media Industry had lots of friends money and could look after themselves but there was one thing missing prince charming. And this prince charming should be of their own age if possible whether in t. V. Shows films all. Advertisement the boy band style was everywhere the metrosexual man with youthful looks and well groomed appearance became the new ideal of beauty. Well for the girls the guys were very good looking all of the girls were to it it was a great looking cast to want to have some pretty people on their look perry whos still gorgeous to this day so it was a group of pretty kids we did got have heart that episode. Got to perform every day of the week. I think they did a great job of reaching Middle America who was their target target audience and demographic giving them teen lessons that was still packaged in a way that was somewhat wholesome i didnt buy youth for years the members of boy and girl bands were just like normal boys and girls the era of unapproachable superstars of the eightys was over. This gap between the star and the fan who became smaller you no longer had dazzling personalities like david bowie regular boys just like those who went to your high school in the eightys were all about luxury goods and it was a time when men were the primary marketing target in the ninetys it opened back up to the wider masses that it is but i think. About when you look at issues of bravo from the sixtys. Until hes in the early eighties there were also a fair number of adults on the covers so thats just alone for example in the seventys there was but spencer wearing a full beard. And then they you thought began in the ninetys and there were more and more boys on the covers. And many of the female figures on t. V. Were also girlies now plats hair slides and sneakers the style of dress is colorful and diverse theres rest for life palpable their motto youthful freedom instead of perfect superwoman despite the fact that top models were also experiencing a boom. And i think the ninetys were an era of supermodels with big names like cloudier chef erin Cindy Crawford the ideal with ninety sixteen ninety i really believe that the girl is were already that unconventional they were worried whether men like it or not that was very extravagant. And the different fashion styles were put together completely crazily i think it wasnt targeted so much at the mens thank you the funny the ricky often picked them alice. The girl next door she defined Music Television of the ninetys established channels like v h one and m. T. V. Catered to cool kids but things changed to a new music channels shook up the market and drove the Youth Culture to an absolute peak. Television became a Cuddle Program happy babbling with slip ups and breakdowns but close to the action provided there was satellite reception or cable in the house in the ninetys private programs entered their living rooms throughout europe. Who took sick you didnt when Satellite Television became available i got the chance to see and itll more of what was going on out that suddenly i could choose between all sorts of programs and music channels i discovered fever or one and leave it to that was incredible i became aware of all sorts of countless artists on the just the European Youth programs provided the main showcase for a boy and girl bands in europe even american bands like the Backstreet Boys and n sync were aware of their importance and took advantage of them because by the mid one nine hundred ninety s. Interest in singing and dancing boys in white pop culture had dropped significantly in the United States. The white boy band couldnt get arrested the man because you know we just came off of the whole new kids on the block maybe three years earlier four years earlier when their popularity soared when the old and everybody had moved on to grunge and it wasnt about you know nobody wants to watch a boy band or europe celebrated synth pop in the one nine hundred eighty s. It was heading for a big dance wave in the ninetys ninetys but grunge and hip hop dominated the american pop charts music for hard times there was no room for sweet dreams of love. From the eightys you had to crack epidemic we had the h i v eight epidemic we had the failure of trickle down economics so the non threatening fon half of the sugar hill gang or run d. M. C. That would change in the ninety eight people were suffering people were angry Police Brutality poverty Ronald Reagan ruining the country george bush sr coming in it was time to talk about whats going on in your community in the ninetys it was quote unquote gangsta and for all of the criticism of coral ho gangsta rap it was. Was a reaction to what people were going through women to found new possibilities of expression in this music like and see light. Or soul pappa. The ninetys definitely open the door for womens rights again through music because of hip hop. And all of these people who are screaming about their status when women. Open the doors for the r. And b. Singers in the soul singers to have an opinion. On vogue stormed the stage with boundless vocal power and plenty to say and songs that took on racism sexism and discrimination they were clear and then to moms. In the ninetys i think women were definitely thinking more about their own sexuality yardley some of the lyrics were pretty racy the lyrics were definitely forward thinking in terms of what we want were not just you know an object we have feelings and desires and we wanted to be right. Afro American Girl bands like jade didnt mind calling things as they were that texts were adult as was their audience however another band became the voice of a whole girls generation t. L. C. Coming. Back. From. Going. But. T. L. C. Determined the whole nine hundred ninety s. Wrote him this for young women with their songs whether its contraception Sexual Exploitation or sick beauty ideals all these issues were mentioned. In the late lisa left eye lopez stood for girl power. A concept which still had to find its way into mainstream. Girl power the spice girls became the perfect embodiment of the movement. From englands working class and they brought feminism to the masses and their message the struggle is over now lets have fun. As melanie c. Says you know you dont have to burn a bra to be a feminist i think it means that you dont have to you know protest and believe in everything all the feminists did in the suffragettes did you just have to be confident and be so and not be. Told what t