The term was not established until the late 1980s when
Lou Pearlman decided to form a record company to promote a new singing and dancing group after becoming fascinated with the success of
New Kids on the Block. Although generally described as a rock band, the highest-selling band in history –
the Beatles – have been described by several journalists as "the first" or "the original" boy band, "before anyone had thought of the term", exclusively due to the enthusiastic response they received from their young female audience. Other critics, however, have pointed out that this assessment of the Beatles as a "boy band" could be applied to all other bands of the 1960s, saying, "if they were a (boy band), so was everyone else" and is countered by others, including
Ringo Starr, who point out that, from the beginning, the Beatles wrote and exercised creative control over their own music, played their own instruments, were not manufactured by a record label, and did not feature the choreographed dance moves that later came to be associated with boy bands. which featured
a music group of the same name, created for the show, that consisted of the four starring actors. The Monkees had a career as a rock and pop band after their songs from the TV series were released as successful records. They have sold an estimated 120 million records worldwide, however some claim their record sales could be as high as 300 million. Their debut studio album, ''
Rollin' (1974) achieved considerable commercial success internationally, debuting atop the albums charts in the United Kingdom, as well as the top ten in Australia. It also reached the top forty of the albums charts in Canada, Japan and New Zealand, and finished 1975 as the 16th best selling album of the year in the United Kingdom. In May 1975, they released their second album, Once Upon a Star'', which continued their commercial success, again topping the albums charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the top ten in
Finland and Australia. It spawned the successful single "
Bye, Bye Baby" which reached number one on the singles charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, and became the
best–selling single of 1975 in the United Kingdom. In Japan,
Johnny Kitagawa formed his first boy band in 1962, called
Johnnys and after their initial success, started the company
Johnny & Associates, that continued to produce highly successful new groups in the following decades. He also established the trainee system, under the name Johnny’s Jr., that was later adapted by the
K-Pop industry.
Late 1970s and 1980s: Menudo, New Edition, and New Kids on the Block in concert, November 2008 The Puerto Rican boy band
Menudo, appealing to young
Latina audiences, was founded in 1977. Menudo had a convention unique among boy bands: when a member turned 16, became too tall, or their voice changed, they were replaced. The members of Menudo were generally aged 12–16. Menudo had a large impact in Latin America and in Asia; Menudo fever there was compared to Beatlemania and it was nicknamed "Menudomania". Boston group
New Edition was formed in 1978 and reached their height of popularity in the 1980s, meaning they are often credited for starting the boy-band trend, even though the term "boy band" did not exist until the 1990s.
Maurice Starr was influenced by New Edition and popularized it with his
protégé New Kids on the Block (NKOTB), the first commercially successful modern boy band, which formed in 1984 and found international success in 1988. Starr's idea was to take the traditional template from the R&B genre (in this case his teenage band New Edition) and apply it to a pop genre.
Bros (abbreviation of the word "brothers") were a British boy band active in the late 1980s and early 1990s, consisting of twin brothers
Matt and
Luke Goss along with
Craig Logan. Formed in 1986, they scored multiple top 10 hits between 1987 and 1989 and in 1988 became the first modern era–style boy band to have a multiple platinum-selling album in the UK, with
Push, still one of the most successful boy-band albums in the UK. Other big boy bands in Britain during the late 1980s were
Big Fun and
Brother Beyond. achieved international success during the 1970s and sold between an estimated 120–300 million records worldwide.
1990s: Boyz II Men, Take That, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Westlife, Seo Taiji and Boys and the birth of modern K-pop The ongoing international success of New Kids on the Block inspired music managers in Europe to create their own acts, beginning with
Nigel Martin-Smith's
Take That in the UK (formed in 1990) and followed by
Tom Watkins, who had success with
Bros in the late 1980s and formed
East 17 in 1991. East 17 were marketed and pitted against Take That as "rivals" with a rougher or harsher attitude, style and sound. Take That reformed in 2006 after a decade-long hiatus and became one of the most successful groups in British music chart history, with renewed chart success internationally, especially in Europe. Irish music manager
Louis Walsh, who had witnessed the impact of these British boy bands, put out an advert for an "Irish Take That", thereby creating
Boyzone in 1993.
MN8 (formed in 1992),
Let Loose (formed in 1993), and
Damage and
911 (formed in 1995) were also successful boy bands in Britain; however, by the late 1990s all these bands had split up. All these artists were very successful on both the singles and albums charts domestically and internationally; however, with the emergence of
Britpop and the commercial co-option of
indie rock, many boy bands were ridiculed by the British music press as having no artistic credibility, although some, such as East 17 and Take That, did write most of their own material. The media attention was then placed on the "Battle of Britpop", and the bands
Oasis and
Blur replaced the importance and rivalry of Take That and East 17 as the two new biggest bands in Britain. However, boy bands continued to find success in the late 1990s, such as
Five,
Another Level,
Point Break and
Westlife. In 1995 successful German music manager
Frank Farian, who had been manager of
Boney M and
Milli Vanilli, put together
Latin American band
No Mercy who scored a few worldwide hits during the mid-90s. Although being American and the sons of
Tito Jackson, a member of
the Jackson 5,
3T had several hits singles across Europe in the mid-1990s, despite limited success in the US, and finished the second biggest selling act of 1996 in Europe behind the
Spice Girls. In Japan,
SMAP debuted under Johnny & Associates in 1991, and became the agency's most successful group to date, enjoying tremendous success and selling over 35 million records. In 1992, South-Korean artist
Seo Taiji formed the boy band
Seo Taiji and Boys (Korean: 서태지와 아이들) together with dancers Lee Juno and
Yang Hyun-suk, which went on to become highly successful and is credited with changing the South Korean music industry by pioneering the incorporation of
rap and
breakdance, creating the prototype for the modern hybrid
K-pop genre. sold over 100 million records. In the early 1990s in North America, with New Kids on the Block's continued success and
Color Me Badd also having success, boy bands became a continued staple of the Billboard charts. Continuing this success in the mid-1990s, most prominent boy bands were African American and had R&B and gospel elements, such as the groups
All-4-One (formed in 1993) and
Boyz II Men (formed in 1988). Boyz II Men are also the most successful boy band act on the
U.S. Hot 100 as well as the
Australian Singles Chart. Although they had success on the Billboard charts, they were not marketed towards youth but more towards adults. It was not until 1997 and the change to pop-oriented groups such as
Backstreet Boys,
98 Degrees,
NSYNC,
the Moffatts, and
Hanson that boy bands exploded commercially and dominated the market in the United States. This period in the late 1990s marked the height of boy band popularity in North America, which has not been seen since. Arguably the most successful boy band manager from the U.S. was
Lou Pearlman, who founded commercially successful acts such as the Backstreet Boys in 1993, NSYNC and
LFO in 1995,
O-Town in 2000, and
US5 in 2005. Backstreet Boys and NSYNC became the two biggest boy bands in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, and Backstreet Boys went on to become the best-selling boy band in history with over 100 million records sold. and was initially managed by a former member of the band
Ronan Keating. Westlife would eventually overtake Take That in number one's tally in the UK although Take That's overall UK sales are still higher. In 2012, the
Official Charts Company revealed the biggest selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That placed 15th overall and the highest selling boyband act (9.3 million), followed by Boyzone at 29 (7.1 million) and Westlife at 34 (6.8 million). Even though Cowell is known to have managed several successful boy bands, he is also infamous for passing on signing two of the biggest boybands to emerge from the 1990s and 2000s, Take That and
Busted.
2000s: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Westlife and Jonas Brothers are described as a pop boy band. With the continued success of
Backstreet Boys and
*NSYNC, American and British groups like
98 Degrees,
Westlife,
O-Town,
A1,
Blue, and
Busted gained quick popularity both domestically and internationally. International boy bands would also occasionally spring up, such as the
Moldovan band
O-Zone, and
Overground. American Christian boy band
Plus One also enjoyed brief remarkable success during this time. At the height of boy band popularity in
North America, MTV created their own parody boyband,
2gether. Like
the Monkees in the 1960s, they were a manufactured act composed of actors. 2gether played off of the idea that every successful boy band must have five distinct personality types: the bad boy, the shy one, the young one, the older brother type, and a heart throb. Since 2001, the dominance of traditional boy bands on pop charts began to fade in the western hemisphere, although Gil Kaufman of
MTV has described "new boy bands" that are "more likely to resemble
My Chemical Romance,
Sum 41, and
Simple Plan. In 2001, Taiwanese boy band
F4 (called JVKV since 2007) blew up big as a result of the success of their TV drama
Meteor Garden. According to
Forbes, F4 has sold 3.5 million copies of their first two albums all over Asia as of July 2003. With their success, many other Taiwanese boy bands emerged around this time, such as
5566 and
Fahrenheit. In South Korea,
Shinhwa also spread
hallyu wave throughout Asia such as Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Also in 2001, a new all-male pop band and dance group boyband hailing from Japan called
Exile debuted under Avex Group's label
Rhythm Zone with 14 members, putting them on par with
Super Junior, a South Korean boy band, who at the time, had had 13 members at its peak. Japanese boy band
Arashi has sold over 30 million copies of their records since their first release in 1999. They had the
yearly best-selling single in Japan in 2008 and 2009. In 2003
SMAP released the single "
Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana" that has become the
third best-selling single ever in Japan, with over three million copies sold. In North America, the
Jonas Brothers rose to fame from promotion on the
Disney Channel in 2008. Other boy bands like
JLS and
Mindless Behavior also emerged and experienced remarkable success around this time. However, apart from them, boy bands have not seen the commercial boom experienced in the genre from the mid to late nineties in North America. The mid 2000s, especially the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, saw the continued longevity of nineties boy bands such as
Backstreet Boys and
Westlife (before they disbanded in 2012), and the successful comeback of
Take That in 2005,
Boyzone in 2007, and
New Kids on the Block in 2008. Some sections of the press have referred to these acts, particularly those who have reformed after a previous split, such as Take That, Boyzone, and
98 Degrees, as 'man bands'.
2010s and 2020s: Big Time Rush, One Direction and rise of K-pop rose to fame in 2011. In the early 2010s, there was somewhat of a resurgence of boy band popularity in countries where the trend had not maintained, with the emergence of new boy bands like
Big Time Rush,
the Wanted, and
One Direction and the formation of
supergroup NKOTBSB which comprised members of New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys. NKOTBSB's success inspired boy bands who were fairly popular during the 1990s and 2000s to make a comeback, such as A1,
Blue, 98 Degrees,
Five,
911, and O-Town. Like
2gether and
the Monkees, Big Time Rush was a manufactured act created for a television show. One Direction were often credited as sparking a resurgence in the popularity and interest boy bands alongside being credited with forming part of a new "
British Invasion" in the United States. Their
Where We Are Tour was the highest-grossing tour by a vocal group in history and after the release of their fourth album,
Four, they became the only group in the 58-year history of the
Billboard 200 to have their first four albums debut at number one. In Southeast Asia, local boy bands also emerged as a result of the continued success of Korean and Japanese boy bands. After the debut of the Philippines supergroup
SB19 in 2018, the group appeared at number six on
Billboard Year-End Social 50 chart, making them the first Southeast Asian act to reach the top 10 of the magazine's annual chart. In South Korea, boy bands have been commercially successful. On the
Circle Chart year-end albums chart of 2022, 7 of the top 10 and 13 of the top 20 albums are by boy bands or by subunits/members of boy bands. Seventeen's
FML is the best-selling album of all time in South Korea, with more than 6.2 million copies sold, and BTS's
Love Yourself: Her became the first album released since 2001 to sell more than 1 million copies. In 2013, Billboard started covering music releases in K-pop, though K-pop had been entering the charts as early as 2009. By 2017, BTS crossed into the international music market, furthering the
Korean Wave in the United States and becoming the first Korean group to receive a certification by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) with their single "
Mic Drop". The band is the first Korean act to top the U.S.
Billboard 200 with their studio album
Love Yourself: Tear (2018) and have since hit the top of the U.S. charts with their albums
Love Yourself: Answer (2018),
Map of the Soul: Persona (2019),
Map of the Soul: 7 (2020),
Be (2020) and
Proof.
Love Yourself: Answer also broke South Korea's
Gaon Album Chart's all-time monthly record previously set by
Love Yourself: Tear and became the first Korean album certified Gold in the United States.
SuperM later became the first K-pop group to debut at No. 1 in the U.S.
Billboard 200. In 2020, BTS "
Dynamite" debuted atop the
Billboard Hot 100, making them the first all-South Korean act in Hot 100 history to debut at number one. It garnered the band their first
Grammy nomination, for
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at
63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making them the first K-pop act to be nominated for one. On 12 December 2024, South Korean boy group
Stray Kids become the first act ever to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with their first six charting albums
Oddinary (2022),
Maxident (2022),
5-Star (2023),
Rock-Star (2023),
Ate (2024) and
Hop (2024). In Japan,
Arashi was the best-selling music artist in Japan from 2013 through 2017 by value of sales and also having the yearly best-selling album in the country in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016. Other successful Japanese boy bands in this decade include
Sandaime J Soul Brothers, the second best-selling music artist of 2016 in the country and
Kanjani Eight, the fifth best-selling music artist of that year in Japan. In Norway, the boy band
Ballinciaga gained commercial success in 2022 with dance and party songs like "Dans På Bordet" and "Beklager (Guttaklubben)". The group is also known for keeping their identities anonymous by wearing pink-colored masks in the public. Other Norwegian boy bands that gained commercial success in the country in 2020s are
Undergrunn and
Tigergutt101 in 2022 and 2024 respectively. Fictional boy bands such as 4*TOWN from
Turning Red and Saja Boys from
KPop Demon Hunters have gained popularity, charting on the Billboard Hot 100. With the success of K-pop groups, many western labels have shifted to creating groups modeled after the "K-pop aesthetic".
HYBE, a South Korean entertainment company, most notably responsible for BTS' success, teamed up with American label,
Geffen. This partnership lead to the creation of
Katseye, a global girl group in 2024. This then lead HYBE to create
Santos Bravos, a Latin boy band based out of
Mexico City. Previously, in early 2024,
Q_ARE, a Chilean boy band debuted with elements of K-pop and Latin pop sounds. Currently, Q_ARE have become a national and international phenomenon and considered the first Latin K-pop boy band. ==Key factors of the concept==