Boybands Forever - BBC Documentary series
- Thread starter Stuart
- Start date
Island
Staff member
It looked like Damage was first going for a musical style similar to MN8 but when they flopped and the first single didn’t hit, the label turned them into crooner loverboys. At least their second album seemed to be the music they wanted to make.
Damage don’t deserve to be as forgotten as other boybands of that era cos quality wise, they might’ve had the most consistently good material. I’d take them over Another Level and Blue.
Damage don’t deserve to be as forgotten as other boybands of that era cos quality wise, they might’ve had the most consistently good material. I’d take them over Another Level and Blue.
Simon Cowell posturing like he had the ability to punch out Scott from Five, yeah alright sis.
Louis Walsh looks like he hasn't left some recluse mansion full of feral cats for a decade.
Westlife must be the most soulless, coma inducing product ever. Cowell going on about 'all those number ones' but does anyone remember them? It was like one long ballad.
Louis Walsh looks like he hasn't left some recluse mansion full of feral cats for a decade.
Westlife must be the most soulless, coma inducing product ever. Cowell going on about 'all those number ones' but does anyone remember them? It was like one long ballad.
Last edited:
This was a really interesting (and nostalgic) mini-series...although in my head the decline of the boyband format in the years around 2005 had more to do with growing interest in "bands with instruments" and the indie boom of the mid-2000s than X Factor alone, as was suggested here? Only a few 'pop' groups weathered that moment (notably Girls Aloud).
A1 dropped Paul and picked up their guitars, so even they got in on the act. Busted. McFly. Still boybands, if anything more akin to the old style boybands of the 60s and 70s (The Monkees, who were brilliantly talented musicians in their own right, with Micky Dolenz having my favourite 60s voice) than what immediately preceded them.
The truth is that their first three number ones were on low-selling weeks and could easily have gone the other way had they not timed it right. It was the chart battle with Cliff Richard for Xmas 99 that gave them their first #1 weekly sale to shout about. I'd hazard a guess now that unless your mum loved Westlife, if you are a teenager now you probably only know "Flying Without Wings" from weddings and at a push, some of their covers.
I'm saying this as someone who liked Westlife's early singles - the Louis Walsh hit machine became so obvious by 2000. Just block book them on everything during release week and put a new single remix as the a-side. Once they wheels came off in the mid-2000s they started to rely on the following plan to get hits -
1. Old song features on X Factor auditions over some Judges Decision Times for a few weeks
2. Westlife cover version replaces it for the Bootcamp weeks
3. Westlife perform cover on live shows.
I am so glad that ITV reject the SyCo Top of the Pops on Channel 3 idea for Saturday nights as it would have been just Simon and Louis acts for 20 minutes, one big American name, and then one other "and also" to give someone outside Sony a shot to look fair.
Mvnl
Staff member
It is kind of interesting how, while generally a good ballad has more lasting power than a pop song that's very of its time, overall bands like Backstreet Boys & *NSYNC definitely delivered way more classics that stood the test of time than Westlife with their rather vanilla output. If I Let You Go's still great though and When You're Looking Like That bops.
There is only a single Westlife song. It's approximately 9 hours and was just cut up into 3.5 minute sections and given different names.
Westlife never interested me. There was something so boring about their music. It was all just so bland, cliché "I love you" drippy ballds. Even the uptempos like When You're Looking Like That, which is a decent pop song, paled in comparison to the Max Martin tracks of Backstreet Boys or Five. I was 20 when they launched though, and I suspect the target audience was girls aged 10-16 ish. Flying Without Wings came out when I was on a year in France and so the hugeness of it passed me by. I still don't really care for it much, and can't ever quite articulate why I find the title so odd. Flying Without Wings - it's such a crap title and sentiment.
When they came along, I found Busted to be a real breath of fresh air - singing songs about time travel and fancying teachers and crashing weddings. It was so much more interesting than what Westlife were doing.
When they came along, I found Busted to be a real breath of fresh air - singing songs about time travel and fancying teachers and crashing weddings. It was so much more interesting than what Westlife were doing.
I watched this last night. I don’t think there was anything in it that I didn’t already know but it was quite comforting to watch. I get quite nostalgic for this time in pop music around Christmas.
A girl group version would be more my thing.
Ep1: Eternal, Spice Girls & All Saints
Ep2: B*Witched, Atomic Kitten & Sugababes
Ep3: Mis Teeq, Girls Aloud & Sugababes (2.0/3.0)
A girl group version would be more my thing.
Ep1: Eternal, Spice Girls & All Saints
Ep2: B*Witched, Atomic Kitten & Sugababes
Ep3: Mis Teeq, Girls Aloud & Sugababes (2.0/3.0)
Is there much intrigue around Mis-Teeq? They were successful, their record company went bust, they decided to call it a day. I know there's been issues subsequently but I don't remember there being any talk of much drama or background shenanigans with them. Some of the failed/less successful but hugely expensive projects (your Thunderbugs, Hepburns, Girl Things) were pretty outrageous with how girls were manipulated and taken advantage of.
I think to be honest you could do a documentary just about First Avenue. The stuff that team got up and how it treated it's acts was absolutely wild.
Last edited:
It's only today that I've remembered that the b-side on Westlife's first single was a cover of Damage's "Forever". I wonder if that rubbed it in somewhat?