Why does anyone still want to join a manufactured group?

[SweetCherryCola]

I'm just wondering because it seems like every attempt at doing this in the last few years has either struggled to get anywhere or have been dead on arrival. Simon Cowell's attempts at boybands post-1D like PrettyMuch and December10 made no noise at all and Katseye has still not put out an album despite them getting some international top 20's by now and being the biggest girl band in years. Besides the high likelihood that the group will flop, there are so many other downsides. Rehearsals are frequent and intense, you'll have very little free time to enjoy life and be young. You'll be given music to perform that you probably won't like but are forced to give it your all. You may not get along with your bandmates but will have to work with them everyday. Your image will be tightly controlled and you won't be able to dress how you like, say what you think or release when you want. You'll also make very little money of your own, the record labels take almost all of it. And let's face it, a lot of people are selected for these groups because they're not amazing enough on their own so they'd do better blending into a group and together, they make something special. It's a big insult when you think about it. According to what I've been told about new act Adéla, the reason why she was kicked off the first round of the Katseye group search despite being very talented was because she was deemed to be better suited to being a soloist. So that tells you that if you get selected, it wasn't because the judges thought you were exceptional, but just good enough to work well as part of something bigger.

 

This all amounts to all downsides, no upsides. The only possibility that remains is the fantasy of "This could just be the start of my career, the stepping stone to being a soloist. I'll just stick it out for a few years, build some name recognition and fanbase, then I'll quit and be the next big thing, just like Beyonce." But they fail to see that the soloist dream rarely works out. It sometimes only lasts for a short while (Geri Halliwell of The Spice Girls, Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child, Camila Cabello of Fifth Harmony), is very localised success (Cheryl from Girls Aloud, Jade from Little Mix) or sometimes falls completely flat (Nicole Scherzinger from Pussycat Dolls, Victoria Beckham from The Spice Girls, Normani from Fifth Harmony, Jesy Nelson from Little Mix). And that's not an exhaustive list. And those are just the girl bands. The boybands have even less chance. Harry Styles is the only true success story from 1D and apart from Justin Timberlake, who else can you name who made it?

 

All in all, what are these young people looking for by signing up for this chance in this day and age when manufactured groups have never been more old-fashioned and we're aware of all the drawbacks? 

[blueskiesforever]

I think the allure of fame and fortune is just too strong and despite all the cautionary tales (plenty of them from the 300* boy/girl bands that were around in the late 90s-early 2000s)  they try to join these groups thinking “I’m the going to beat the odds and I’m gonna make it”. But as you stated, the downsides clearly outweigh the benefits. I’m kinda surprised with Katseye’s success since girl bands (Spice Girls the exception, of course) never achieve the same levels of popularity as boy bands, though I don’t see them sticking around for long. 

2 hours ago, SweetCherryCola said:

Harry Styles is the only true success story from 1D and apart from Justin Timberlake, who else can you name who made it?

Michael Jackson if you consider the Jackson 5 a boy band (I’d say they were as their image/sound was manufactured by Motown), and Ricky Martin. 

[Lindsay Lohan]

I do really hate the concept of a manufactured group because they usually are fads and will completely fall off or disband after a few years, at least the Americanized / British groups. Katseye followed a South Korea approach to a girl group, but even then I think they will be gone by 2029/2030 because that type of style just is not big enough in the west to hold peoples attention for a long period of time. It's a gimmick paid for by labels hoping for large invest on return.

 

South Korea has a really interesting approach to it and though the labels are usually very extreme when selecting and training talent, it usually does lead to the idols having a full career outside the group because they are picked to be a unique counterpart personality-wise, style-wise, and talent-wise. This is also why you see solo fan cams online because a lot of the time fans connect to only one of the members and follow them outside the group once it disbands. There's also a lot of evidence that supports solo success after disbanding. It's actually extremely interesting to me how groups like BTS and Blackpink managed to escape South Korea and become popular in the west despite not singing in English, which a lot of westerners are ignorant to.

 

Going back to America, a lot of these manufactured groups are also very "lightning in a bottle" and 'of the time' because today, Fifth Harmony would have NEVER became popular, they can't dance, they're not good at singing together, their music is not interesting enough, and they really feel like a product of the early 2010s - they could never exist successfully or debut post-2018. There has also been tons of other groups that the X-Factor has tried to push out and that failed. They've been trying to have another "big group" the way 1D has since it ended and it doesn't work because like you said, it's an outdated thing, and it simply does not work in the west the way it does Asia. Solo artists have the same, if not more appeal than a group does in the modern day.

 

Fifth Harmony is another good example for how the west doesn't really care about the long term of an artist because look at Camila Cabello compared to Dinah Jane... lol.

[SweetCherryCola]

23 hours ago, blueskiesforever said:

I think the allure of fame and fortune is just too strong and despite all the cautionary tales (plenty of them from the 300* boy/girl bands that were around in the late 90s-early 2000s)  they try to join these groups thinking “I’m the going to beat the odds and I’m gonna make it”. But as you stated, the downsides clearly outweigh the benefits. I’m kinda surprised with Katseye’s success since girl bands (Spice Girls the exception, of course) never achieve the same levels of popularity as boy bands, though I don’t see them sticking around for long. 

Michael Jackson if you consider the Jackson 5 a boy band (I’d say they were as their image/sound was manufactured by Motown), and Ricky Martin. 

 

Yes, so many of us think we'll be the exception to the rule despite the stats not being in our favour. It is indeed an odd pattern that girl bands tend to not be as big as boy bands yet boy bands tend to split up quicker, have much more short-lived success and for members to struggle with solo fame. Maybe because when being a fan of girl bands it's because we truly appreciate their talent (which never fades) but with boy bands, if their fans would be honest enough to admit it, is stemmed from finding them attractive (which can fade and liking someone purely for this is something we grow out of). Hence, girl bands stick around a bit longer, boy bands largely just have a season in the sun.

And yeah, I guess I never considered a Motown group being a boy band but I guess they are. And I didn't know Ricky Martin used to be in band!

 

22 hours ago, Lindsay Lohan said:

I do really hate the concept of a manufactured group because they usually are fads and will completely fall off or disband after a few years, at least the Americanized / British groups. Katseye followed a South Korea approach to a girl group, but even then I think they will be gone by 2029/2030 because that type of style just is not big enough in the west to hold peoples attention for a long period of time. It's a gimmick paid for by labels hoping for large invest on return.

 

South Korea has a really interesting approach to it and though the labels are usually very extreme when selecting and training talent, it usually does lead to the idols having a full career outside the group because they are picked to be a unique counterpart personality-wise, style-wise, and talent-wise. This is also why you see solo fan cams online because a lot of the time fans connect to only one of the members and follow them outside the group once it disbands. There's also a lot of evidence that supports solo success after disbanding. It's actually extremely interesting to me how groups like BTS and Blackpink managed to escape South Korea and become popular in the west despite not singing in English, which a lot of westerners are ignorant to.

 

Going back to America, a lot of these manufactured groups are also very "lightning in a bottle" and 'of the time' because today, Fifth Harmony would have NEVER became popular, they can't dance, they're not good at singing together, their music is not interesting enough, and they really feel like a product of the early 2010s - they could never exist successfully or debut post-2018. There has also been tons of other groups that the X-Factor has tried to push out and that failed. They've been trying to have another "big group" the way 1D has since it ended and it doesn't work because like you said, it's an outdated thing, and it simply does not work in the west the way it does Asia. Solo artists have the same, if not more appeal than a group does in the modern day.

 

Fifth Harmony is another good example for how the west doesn't really care about the long term of an artist because look at Camila Cabello compared to Dinah Jane... lol.

 

I think k-pop bands are being sold in the West more effectively because we understand what this genre is about. Yes, they're essentially made in a lab and sing what's given to them...but that's the whole point. This is just how pop is in Korean culture - they know this, accept it and don't let it affect their enjoyment of the music. If they don't mind, why should we? But pop made in the West has very different expectations. We used to be fine with the manufactured pop model but now we want all singers to be able make original material, bonus points if they can sing well and play instruments too. Pop has evolved to the point where we want them to do more than sing a catchy song with some cute dance moves, we demand they be full-on musicians, artistes. You stand out like a sore thumb now if you don't write your own work. So, while we could accept a manufactured group from Korea, we wouldn't accept that from a group made in America. Which is why I ultimately think Katseye is struggling. They use the k-pop model but they're not actually k-pop, and therein lies the entire issue. 

 

Yes, most of these groups are made to be current by design. Which means that they won't work outside of that era apart from nostalgic reasons. We remember how good it felt jamming to this song in 2015 because it suited our life in that moment but once time and trends move on, we wouldn't think it was as amazing as we heard it today, but when we hear it, we're transported back to that time, so it lives on. I'm like that with the music I loved as a kid, there's no doubt I'd view it in a very different light if it was released today. I'll say this much: even as a woman, I never understood why girls liked boy bands purely because they were attractive. How it can make you buy singles, albums, merch and tour tickets. You didn't see boys do the same for girl groups or any female artist for that matter. If they only liked her for her hotness, they put up a poster of her on their wall and watched her videos on mute. I never particularly liked boy band music anyway, always thought the girls were far superior.