Were The Beatles...gulp...the First Boy Band? (blues, genre, group)

[kentuckydad95]

I overheard this somewhere and though I didn't say anything, it sort of irked me. I am not a huge Beatles fan, but do like some of their music. It just paints them in a different light if you put them in a "Boy Band" category.

[Thomas R.]

Some place them that way. Although I think in a sense there were "boy bands", in the sense of bands made up of boys and billed that way, before them. Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers were maybe in some ways a "boy band" as their name implies their youthfulness. Although the style of music they played and racial aspects of the Teenagers, they were a mixed black and Hispanic group with one white guy, maybe makes it different. A better example, although they don't predate the Beatles they may predate the Beatles popularity for the US, is "The Beach Boys." The Beach Boys had some aspects that might make them more genuinely the first "boy band", starting with "boys" being in their name. It also sounded like their father "saw money in them" so there was a marketing element from the start.

Which relates to I think the idea of "boy bands" is really more a diverse term to imply a group was created and marketed for the youth audience in order to gain money and fame. Although I actually like a good deal of "Beach Boys" songs and I think their music did matter to them as did trying new things. The Monkees might be closer, although maybe they were unfairly maligned, in being like the modern idea of "boy bands." Granted though they reportedly arose as a response to the Beatles.

So I guess I'd say "The Beach Boys" may fit as the start if we discount doo-wop "boy bands" as a different animal.

[Thursday007]

Look at Motown first and then the Beatles, but yes they are considered a boy band.

Boy band - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MplsTodd]

Originally Posted by Thursday007

Look at Motown first and then the Beatles, but yes they are considered a boy band.

Boy band - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd say the Beatles have a few similarities with Boy Bands, namely they were extremely popular with teen girls, plus, due to this popularity, they were heavily merchandised (the whole Beatlemania era and all its fanzines/Beatlewigs/bubblegum cards etc...). But there are several major differences:

1. The Beatles came together as a band themselves, rather than being assembled by a management team
2. The Beatles played their own instruments
3. The Beatles wrote their own songs

If you're gonna consider the Beatles a boy band, then why not the Stones, The Kinks, The Who, or The Small Faces

[saucywench]

No! Ringo was twenty-two when he joined the Beatles.

In the beginning, the Beatles performed many live shows at all night clubs in the notorious red-light light district of Hamburg, known as The Reeperbahn. Not exactly the kind of place one might catch an N'Sync show. Maybe a live sex show! And you can bet, there were no screaming teenybopper girls in attendance either. George was the only underage member(for a short time) during these shows early in their careers.

[Thursday007]

Originally Posted by MplsTodd

I'd say the Beatles have a few similarities with Boy Bands, namely they were extremely popular with teen girls, plus, due to this popularity, they were heavily merchandised (the whole Beatlemania era and all its fanzines/Beatlewigs/bubblegum cards etc...). But there are several major differences:

1. The Beatles came together as a band themselves, rather than being assembled by a management team
2. The Beatles played their own instruments
3. The Beatles wrote their own songs

If you're gonna consider the Beatles a boy band, then why not the Stones, The Kinks, The Who, or The Small Faces

You make an excellent point here and I'd say the difference would be their audiences.

[Thomas R.]

The Beach Boys may not fit either then as they were college age, I think.

Wikipedia lists The Osmonds and The Jackson 5, which seems like a starting point that might better fit if we mean "boy" as in under-18. Although they were more like "family acts" which is potentially a bit different. The Isley Brothers go back to the fifties and Ronald Isley was sixteen when they were first signed to a major label. (Although it looks like he was 18 before they had any kind of hit and 21 before they had a solid hit.)

As I indicated earlier I feel like "boy band" has a more negative or critical connotation than "girl group" does. "Girl group" looks to be the older term and some "girl groups", like Andrews Sisters or the Chordettes or The Supremes or The Vandellas or the Pointer Sisters or whatever, I think are sometimes/often praised as "girl groups." Groups like "The Spice Girls", that sold well but received more widespread ridicule, I think are ridiculed more as being a bad example of a "girl group." I'm not sure any adult uses the term "boy band" for a band they want to praise. I liked "Boys II Men" as a teen, but I'm not sure I referred to them as a "boy band" much even though they basically were one.

[square peg]

Boy bands are, I think, marketed toward adolescents. There's bound to be a bit of crossover in most genres of music, sort of like today's pop and country. It may be intended for one audience, but there are certain properties within the music that fit both categories, thus bringing followers from both crowds.

The Beatles in their early years certainly had an appeal to kids. They were fresh faced and making songs about that singular subject that unites us all with a sound that was new and different. They were the latest thing in those days and that's one item, for better or worse, that never goes out of style. Folks over 30 (my random number) probably weren't as interested, as they were still lamenting the end of their own era. it was a mania for the young.

In a year or two the Beatles started getting serious with some of their songs. (Yesterday, A Hard Day's Night, I'll Follow The Sun, Help, In My Life) The "boy band" was maturing and writing not just great pop songs, but some of the greatest songs ever. The over-30s were now interested.

So yes. They had the appeal and marketing of what we now call boy bands. But they also had a whole lot more to show us. Great subject, kentuckydad!

[Ohiogirl81]

I would never consider the Beatles a boy band. For one thing, by the time their management transformed them from hard-blues-rocking, leather clad punks to goofy, fun-loving boys next door in (collarless) suits and ties, they were in their 20s.