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 were pushing their way into the mainstream at one hundred twenty beats per minute. Cant complain Courtney Love and britpop would 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 the news that every take that had been dreading the most successful band of the decade is splitting up. As it was really terrible i had a friend who was also a big take that fan and we cried. Family sassing 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. Its noble. We even set up an emergency hotline at brother 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 take that it split ill. Take that in the ninetys they were at the top of a gigantic wave of boy and girl. The man just a bass group of five had a massive teenage following turned over tiny profits and kept the press on and their diehard fans of remained true to this day. But. As ive got followed. From every american scene and every country i could get them from. At some point i had collected so much my mother gave me a big bag and said that if i didnt sort it out she threw it all away i. Remind you of course you daydream when you. Take that music 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 i. Was. 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 jackson was the biggest influence on the boy bands since they all combined music singing and choreographed dance routines but for all 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. Success him self as. The jackson five as a. Foundation for the ultimate Entertainment Experience challenge conventional ideas about masculinity and femininity and. By the end of the eightys gender bending gave way to cute boys in the. New wave of boys. When you kids on the block and Going Forward there was a lot more kind of sexual. Its been taken off bodies being shown i think. You know generally that culture had got more and more explicit about showing backlash people like bobby brown these new much more raunchy. And rap stars did show off. Well muscled kind of physics for the enjoyment of female fans and also. Fans as well. Definitely to trade sex symbols you know tops coming off you know. All that kind of stuff and 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. Love in every way is a very gay video because we got purple it somewhere in cut off tops and 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 in wales and you look at whale now youre like what those obviously gay you know you have you know take that youre looking very feminine doing things that people didnt translate that as being gay. In one nine hundred ninety three boys and appeared on islands biggest late night show without a song all record deal but plenty of hot moves and no shortage of sex appeal. Thank. God we look forward to hearing from you when youre famous. But it wasnt done skills that made them famous lead singer Ronan Keating still sting to voice is what catapulted boys own to the top of the charts. But there was one thing that they werent allowed to mention at the beginning band members Stephen Gately was gay. And yet it was the gay and lesbian clubs in large cities that provided the perfect springboard full fledgling boy bands and girl groups what went over well then i would also catch on with the mainstream londons legend to. G. A. Y. Club posted them all that sweat dressed in leather performed for an adult audience for the first time. Irish band boy zone and westlife did shows that. We used to perform quite regularly actually its just a great night its a really full of the warm like we could before the letter heard. Because you know most kids youre taking taking it seriously. You know youre a bit kind of conscious of whats going on but the something about you why its such a part of the audience is just everybodys drinking everybodys having fault. But the Gay Community was any targeted on officially the official target group was a completely different one. Girl whos their minds coming up this week how low and the 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. Got to perform with take that and they were huge at the time i remember travelling 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 were a group. So for the next shows he said we were riding mick trucks like take back the kids theyre going to kill us. Screaming and swooning girls were already doing that in the beatles era. The teeny boppers could integrate the boys on stage into their. But youre free of sexual marital obligations a place where fantasies and run wild. From the middle of the sixtys you start to get these groups theres a sort of kind of demand that particularly with the teen age and preteen family audience for these sort of bands that there was like somewhere between. Pets and sex objects you know its like an early experimentation with ideas of love and romance and concerts but very sore sorry for a girl who may not be allowed to have a boyfriend could have her imaginary boy her in the dealy is from all one and have posters up and hearts around his face and you know and go see him in concert in paris dont feel weird about it because hes there and shes here and her you scream as loud as you want. But for many fans the boys represent more than just pinups on the wall they are companions who accompany them through a tumultuous time in their lives. Theres. A lot of our fans and especially now as they are adults and they come to ash shows and they tell us about how they felt when i would sing since we may not be you know you two and now 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 broads no no no its just teddy bears for us from why here even today from families they say you are 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 side of the song was just it was almost like hearing the song would wash over me and it made me just put in some more of. My goodness first on many didnt understand why young girls like oscar wilde about it even some of the girls didnt understand what you. Just on the meteor that i had thing going in contrast to boys their age girls are more bound to the household thats true today but even more also in the ninetys girls have to help out around the house they cant stay out as late in the evening on 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 stain boys want to play football and goes go to a Backstreet Boys concert i think girls as a fan should be taken with 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 like teens and preteens ever actually got a lot spending power as a huge potential there to make money not just with selling the rec. But with all the merchandise all the kind of spinoffs movies d. V. D. s think muchan dice has always been around just to hit new levels and new heights in the ninetys when people knew that they could release one song and have three different. Versions of it just by changing the cover and i would go all five of your five boys in the bangi you have a single with five different faces hell five i mean that thats take it to the extreme yeah i think then you have people jump on the bandwagon that you had like the dollars and we had howard those sweets he had capri sun drinks while the pop played bedsheets underway and sunglasses and no one is 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 startups 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. A makeover that there was a noticeable push of products onto the market is specially targeted to girls if you take girls magazines for example there were 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 revolved around the self where lies ation of women. Yet as with female protagonists were in the foreground on shows like clueless. Then there were novels like Bridget Jones diary that 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 home. 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 literary 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 it became smaller you no longer had dazzling personalities like david bowie regular boy its 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 busyness of the bubble when you look at issues of gravel from the sixtys. Until hes in the early eightys 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 sixty ninety i really believe that the girl is where 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 views think of the funny though they can pick them out of. 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 Channel shook up the market and drove the Youth Culture to an absolute peak. Television became a Cuddle Program happy babbling would 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 go cassette 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 the programs and Music Channels i discovered fever or won and leave it to you that was incredible i became aware of all sorts of countless artists and that is 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 dropped significantly in the United States. The white boy band couldnt get arrested americas enough 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 moved on to grunge and it wasnt about you know nobody wants to watch a boy band or europe celebrated synth pop in the 1980s it was heading for a big dance wave in the one nine hundred ninety s. 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 nonthreatening father 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 mc lyte. Or soul pappa. The ninetys definitely opened the door for womens rights again through music because of hip hop. And all of these people who are screaming about their status with women. Open the doors for the r. And b. Singers in the soul singers to have an opinion. On vogue stormed the stage with found us vocal and plenty to say in 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 generation t. L. C. Show nothing. But. Come. 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 hour. 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 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 feminist in the suffragettes did you just have to be confident and be self and not be. Told what to do by anyone its a very its a very simple version of feminism but a very effective one they formed a counterpoint to the many boy bands and gave girls new models with which to identify. Spic