Boy Bands and the Performance of Pop Masculinity

BOY BANDS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF POP MASCULINITY Boy Bands and the Performance of Pop Masculinity provides a history of the boy band from the Beatles to One Direction, placing the modern male pop group within the wider context of twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular music and culture. Offering the first extended look at pop masculinity as exhibited by boy bands, this volume links the evolving expressions of gender and sexuality in the boy band to wider economic and social changes that have resulted in new ways of representing what it is to be a man. The popularity of boy bands is unquestionable, and their contributions to popular music are significant, yet they have attracted relatively little study. This book fills that gap with chapters exploring the challenges of defining the boy band phenomenon, its origins and history from the 1940s to the present, the role of management and marketing, the performance of gender and sexuality, and the nature of fandom and fan agency. Throughout, the author illuminates the ways in which identity politics influence the production and consumption of pop music and shows how the mainstream pop of boy bands can both rein- force and subvert gender and class hierarchies. Georgina Gregory is Senior Lecturer for Film and Media at the University of Central Lancashire, where she teaches modules on popular music and youth culture. She is the author of Send in the Clones: A Cultural Study of the Tribute Band. BOY BANDS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF POP MASCULINITY Georgina Gregory First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Georgina Gregory to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gregory, Georgina, author. Title: Boy bands and the performance of pop masculinity / Georgina Gregory. Description: New York ; London : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018046292 (print) | LCCN 2018048465 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429027574 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138647312 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138647329 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Boy bands. | Popular music—History and criticism. | Masculinity in music. Classification: LCC ML3470 (ebook) | LCC ML3470 .G738 2019 (print) | DDC 781.640811—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046292 ISBN: 978-1-138-64731-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-64732-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02757-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra CONTENTS List of Figures vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Definitions: What Constitutes a Boy Band? 8 2 From Barbershop to Mainstream Pop 16 3 Constructing the Product 37 4 Marketing and Promotion 60 5 Weapons of Mass Seduction: Performing Pop Masculinity 83 6 Fandom, Texts and Practices 101 7 Breaking Up, Making Up and Moving On 122 Bibliography 135 Index 157 FIGURES 2.1 Crosby, Stills and Nash 31 4.1 Zodys department store ad for Beatle wigs 63 4.2 The Bay City Rollers 67 4.3 The Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones 68 4.4 The Beatles’ logo 70 4.5 The Monkees’ logo on an album cover 70 4.6 *NSYNC’s logo 70 4.7 The Monkees 73 4.8 The Beatles arrive at JFK Airport 75 4.9 One Direction 77 4.10 The Rolling Stones in concert in Oslo in 1965 81 5.1 Harry Styles 83 7.1 Westlife 132 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to draw attention to a number of people who have helped in the production of this book. In particular, thanks go to Genevieve Aoki and Peter Sheehy of Routledge for allowing me the time needed to complete the project. I also wish to express gratitude to the many students I have taught at University of Central Lancashire over the years, whose observations have provided useful insights into the subject of boy bands and associated fan culture. Amongst others Mark Duffett, Tim Wise and the late David Sanjek have provided a combination of scholarly inspiration and support so thanks must go to them. Finally, as writing takes up such a lot of my time and energy, I am grateful to my family – Greg, Holly, Mya, Jack and Georgia – thank you for being there. INTRODUCTION Throughout the postwar period, groups of young men in their teens or twent ies singing romantic songs in harmony have been the bedrock of the popular music industry. In Janice Miller’s words: “Between The Beatles and The Osmonds and after, came many boy- bands sharing similar characteristics: mainstream manufactured for a teen market with a voracious appetite for this kind of en- tertainment” (Miller, 2011: 84). Although characterized by ephemerality, the presence of boy bands within the musical landscape significantly influences perceptions of masculinity. In fact long before the Osmond brothers or Take That, vocal groups with a repertoire of heartfelt ballads provided a template for the earnest masculinity we are familiar with today. The popularity of boy bands is unquestionable and their contribution to popular music is significant, yet they have attracted limited scholarly interest. Their unthreatening version of masculine identity has dominated the twentieth century but more attention is devoted to rock, rap and metal masculinity (Weinstein, 2000; Walser, 2015; White, 2011). However, as Diane Railton notes: “One of the ironies of popular music studies is that the music that is the most popular, in terms of con- temporary chart success, is rarely discussed by academics writing in the field” (Railton, 2001: 321). Some contextual material is offered by Jay Warner (2006), whose histori- cal account of postwar American vocal groups is limited by its geographical boundary and while it contains important detail about doo- wop and R&B vocal groups, its coverage of groups described as boy bands is limited. Em- anating from the music industry where the exceptional success of boy bands is revered, Frederick Levy’s (2000) The Ultimate Boy Band Book is one of the few texts dedicated to unravelling the phenomenon. Writing from the per- spective of a talent manager, Levy offers some useful insights into the history and construction of boy bands but fails to locate the groups in a broader 2 Introduction socio- cultural or critical framework. Furthermore, as it was written before the successful relaunch of Take That, *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys it does not account for the appearance of ‘man bands’ – well- known groups reassembling as adult versions of their former selves.1 Other industry- focused literature ex- amines the transformative leadership, personal shortcomings and misdemean- ours of pop band managers. A sample includes music journalist Ray Coleman’s (1989) anecdote- filled account of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein’s early life and his closet homosexuality. Presumably because there have been some high- profile lawsuits stemming from financial mismanagement, Tyler Gray’s The Hit Charade (2008) looks at pop impresario Lou Pearlman’s Machiavellian en- deavours through the lens of investigative journalism. Louis Walsh’s successful career as a pop manager also comes under scrutiny (Foley, 2002) in a book charting his rise from working as an office boy to becoming a leading pop supremo. There are also studies of music mogul Simon Cowell’s contribution to pop management (Newkey- Burden, 2009; Bower, 2012), not to mention a wide range of biographies and autobiographies about individual artists and groups. In this respect Herbert (2011), McKeown (2006), and Roach (2006) are typical and all add valuable detail and colour to scholarly study. To some extent, the dearth of academic studies on the subject may be at- tributed to the collective failure of mainstream pop groups to shock or offend. Presumably their wholesome character makes them a less compelling object of study – especially when other music artists do so on such a regular basis. Moreover, as Gayle Wald, one of the first to take the group’s seriously points out, critical writing about pop has a tendency to focus on the shortcomings of mass culture rather than any redeeming or instructive qualities it might offer: Among recent trends in youth music culture, perhaps none has been so widely reviled as the rise of a new generation of manufactured ‘ teenybopper’ pop acts. Since the late 1990s, the phenomenal visibility and commercial success of performers such as … the Backstreet Boys, and ‘N Sync has inspired anxious public handwringing about the shallowness of youth culture, the triumph of commerce over art, and the sacrifice of ‘depth’ to surface and image. (Wald, 2002: 1) Nevertheless, boy bands convey important information about gender identity, a subject overlooked in the majority of literature within popular music studies prior to the 1980s. However, interest has grown, and among others Leonard (2017), Lieb (2013) and Whiteley (2013a, 2013b) explain how gender is constructed, cir- culated and maintained within the music industry. Their work is informed by, and builds upon the work of Judith Butler (2011) and Jack Halberstam (1998) whose observations on the constructed character of gendered identity problematize essentialist readings. Introduction 3 Other than Wald (2002), only a handful of scholars have tackled the nature of gender in boy bands.2 Among them Jamieson (2007) discusses the marketing and presentation of the Backstreet Boys to see if the queer subtexts of boy band videos influence the audience.

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