Now that I've wrapped up my tales of Munich, I have to start putting thought into my blog entries again. It's so much work! So, my apologies in advance for those that are a bit lacking. My first effort shall entail diving not so deeply into the parallel universe of the girl and boy bands we find on this side of the pond. As I've come to learn, there are a few groups deeply ingrained into the psyche over here, and if you're going to be living in these parts and don't want to be a total outcast, it's best you learn who they are.
The Big Guns:
Take That - boy band that's been around since the dawn of time, once included Robbie Williams but then he went solo, the group sort of fell apart, they reformed a few years ago and now they are hugely popular and won't take Robbie back. Their with-Robbie classic 'Back for good' is regarded as a classic in a similar fashion as the Backstreet Boys' 'I want it that way' (that both is, and isn't, saying much I suppose). I believe they can dance, but as they are old now they perform sitting on stools and such. They won 2 Brit awards last week, including song of the year for 'Shine', which has been totally overheard by all thanks to being featured in the ads for a grocery store chain for the last six months. Sharon Osbourne was nearly beside herself with joy when they won. She's probably kidnapped them all and keeping a little Take That harem somewhere. The 'boys', who are in their 30s, are not featured heavily in the gossip columns it seems and might be kind of normal.
Girls Aloud - group made up of 5 girls, allegedly originating on the show X Factor, the current UK version of American Idol. They've been around for a number of years and seem to have a continuous stream of radio-friendly hits, including recent songs 'No, no, no' and 'Call the shots'. The videos are played often at the gym. From what I've seen, they have no dancing ability, but can pose in various positions wearing minimal clothing. Who they date and what they're up to are regularly featured in the papers - one of them recently broke up with that guy who used to be on Desperate Housewives for being not cool enough, and one of them is in hiding (skipped the Brit awards even!) because all these revelations have been coming forward that her soccer-playing husband cheats on her constantly and she doesn't know if she should leave him or not. [note: tomorrow we shall go off on this sort of tangent and learn about WAGs]
Second Tier:
Westlife - another reformed boy bond, technically Irish but for some reason featured in commercials for the post office. There are four of them, I think they might have had a song or two that was played in the US some years ago, and originally came about after Take That was established (or so I learned this morning). Perhaps their recent comeback has also been inspired by them.
Boyzone - another Irish boy band, with a lame name like that you can't really take them seriously, I think. I'm not sure which one, but Ronan Keating came from one of those two groups originally.
Sugababes - girl band with 3 members, did a charity remake of 'Walk this way' with Girls Aloud last year. Members not found quite as intriguing as those of Girls Aloud.
Hopefully No More:
The short list of 'bands' I've caught glimpses of but were just so bad the first time I hope to never hear of them again...
- Atomic Kitten - evil for having spawned Kerry Katona, who is now abut 22, prego with her fourth child with her second husband and has a reality show on MTV. Luckily I don't get MTV, but she also does the commercials for what some might call a grocery store chain, but they only have frozen food so I don't think they count.
- S Club 7 - saw some sort of old school video yesterday, think there were 7 people in the group, 2 of which seemed to be able to sing. Dancing and overly happy smiling was involved. Scary. Both boys and girls.
- Steps - another mixed gender group of questionable talent. I think we've learned by now that these groups are best when only one gender is represented. We have also learned that no one has yet been able to come up with a half-way decent name for a boy or girl band.
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4 comments:
most of the big boy/girl bands over the years or last 10 years have come from ireland like first it was boyzone which then cleared the way for those amazing groups such as westlife and bewitched! (although they did come up with some amazing bands)
i think the spice girls first got big as there was no all girl group here at the time only boy bands and the 'brit pop' battle between blur and oasis (at the time i leaned towards oasis)...anyways the SGirls cleared the way for bands such as atomic kitten, sugarbabes and more recently girls aloud.
these bands were joined by your boybands like backstreet boys although Nsyc (no idea how to spell that) never took off although justin is now huge
I believe it's *NSync or something. Like there's an odd punctuation involved.
And how could I forget about the Spice Girls???
Do the people in these bands actually play their own instruments and write their own material?
Atomic Kitten -- good name for our Lizzie!
i don't think so like some do...take that might - but in my opinion groups like the spice girls are just people in the right place at the right time who may also be good looking (that always seems to help)
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