I thought boybands went out in 2003!?!

I had no doubt that X Factor runners up JLS would be a success, but the hype around them at the moment is insane. They are being treated as if they are the new Take That, attracting literally tens of thousands of teenage girls every time they appear in public. Their X Factor performance last night was polished and slick and their second single, Everybody In Love, looks set to follow the more upbeat Beat Again to #1. Comparisons to Usher's Love In This Club, numerous Another Level singles, early Backstreet Boys material and even Blazin' Squad's long forgotten Love On The Line aside, Everybody In Love is a decent, catchy song only helping to cement their place as Britian's biggest new boyband, filling the R&B void left by Blue, who had filled that one left by Another Level. I had began to think that teenage girls had turned their attentions to all things Disney and American, Zac Efron and the like, but the big success stories of 2009 are homegrown young Brits; JLS, Tinchy Stryder, Chipmunk etc...it seems as if we've swung back round in another inevitable circle and it's cool to idolise British stars again. I expect most girls' bedroom walls are plastered with these people. There will of course still be room for Zac, and anything Twilight related, but they are being slowly pushed aside.



I had been led to believe that the boyband format was no longer relevant. The only boybands that have had any major success in recent years have been 90's bands such as Take That, Boyzone and Westlife so it's excellent to see a really successful new boyband, especially considering that JLS' singles so far have actually been very strong. It proves that it wasn't the boyband format that wasn't working, moreso the quality of material that British acts had been producing between about 2004-2007. I can't think of any other newly launched boyband between McFly (2004) and JLS (2009) that have had anything approaching half decent, appealing material. You can't just throw five boys together and expect them to land a string of #1 singles anymore, they have to have more substance to them, decent music and the likeability factor. And suddenly British music is cool again, just look at the last few weeks; Cheryl Cole, JLS, Jay Sean, Chipmunk and Alexandra Burke amongst others have been responsible for some huge selling singles whilst the current American big things are left languishing outside the top ten. With this in mind, it's a shame that the recent brilliant Backstreet Boys single, Straight Through My Heart, went completely unnoticed, because given to JLS it would have been a huge #1, but as it is, Backstreet Boys are now completely irrelevant to a UK market dominated by young, homegrown talent. It's far easier for a besotted girl in London to believe that they will marry Aston from JLS than it is that they will marry Zac Efron, it's just that up until the recent pop boom of the later part of this decade, the UK had nobody like this to idolise because the industry was obsessed with identikit indie, singer/songwriters and faceless urban. Thank god things go in circles, although I'm not looking forward to the impending indieborefest in store for 2016!!!