Boybands: The Bastard Sons of Music
December 19, 2006 by Jo Minor
Oh boy…where do I start?
Boybands have been a regular part of mainstream music, especially here in Malaysia. It seems that all boybands, no matter how awful they are, achieve quite a generous amount of album sales in the country even though they tend to fail miserably elsewhere.
We have seen the appearance, and soon their inevitable disappearance, of many boybands. Code Red, 911, Five…they all come and go, leaving almost no musical impact after their desertion. Then why do the prepubescent girls (and some sexually-confused guys) here always fall for the same pretty faces? Is the overall standard for music in Malaysia so low that the industry has to rely on these one-hit-wonders to generate profits for the record companies? Or do Malaysians, in general, have such an appalling musical taste that every bubblegum-pop tune is swallowed down mindlessly, time and time again?
Malaysia, we are being laughed at here. We are listed as the only country to allow the pint-sized freaks 911 (remember them?) to have a No.1 hit, for a total of 18 weeks. 18 weeks, people.
This has to be the saddest article I’ve written in all my years of writing.
911
Apparently two of them, Jimmy and Spike, were dancers on a late night show called The Hitman and Her. Then, they had a brilliant idea - of forming their own group when they were getting better responses (probably from gay men) than the acts they were supporting. Their final member, Lee, only got into the group after his sister persuaded Jimmy and Spike to let him in. You sure showed ‘em what a man’s made of, Lee.
What dancing has to do with singing in a midget boy band is anyone’s guess, but after a long career of 5 years - hey, that’s long when you think about how many of them disappear after a couple of weeks - they decided to call it quits. Good riddance, I say.
As the norm for almost any boy band, they did have their share of hit singles - with ridiculous titles such as Love Sensation (that’s an orgasm, you idiots), How Do You Want Me To Love You? (how about “no”?), and A Little Bit More (of what?)
For a boy and labeled as the “next Take That” - they sure fell short (pun intended) of the mark.
Hanson
No other established all-male musical ensemble has ever appeared and sounded more feminine than this bunch of fags. When they first appeared on the radio, I remember having lengthy arguments with friends who kept telling me they were girls - and the only reason I was convinced that they were, in fact, effeminate teenagers were their names.
Hanson is made up of brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac - but their names won’t help tell them apart since they all look the same anyway.
They will never be forgiven - in this lifetime or the next - for releasing the terrible and irritating single MMMBop in 1997. We will never know what the title of the song stands for but here are the lyrics for the chorus of the song - see if you can make anything out of it:
MMMBop, ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do. Oh yeah,
MMMBop ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do
I have nothing else to say…
No Mercy
Ooh, a bunch of tough guys…
No Mercy was formed by one Frank Farian, Marty Cintron III and brothers Ariel and Gabriel Hernandez - and focused on incorporating dance tunes into their music thus making their gay music even gayer.
Known for their terrible song titles and lyrics, No Mercy has released singles such as Where Do You Go - one of their Hot 100 Top 40 hits in 1996, the other one being Please Don’t Go. Looks like these boys don’t like traveling (and English) that much.
No Mercy can be credited for other dreadfully-titled singles such as Hello How Are You and Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. Wow, there’s just no stopping these guys!
Thankfully, though, their language murdering days were over in 2003 when their producer decided to rework the songs for their third album for solo artiste Daniel Lopes’ debut album entitled Shine On.
I guess the producer knew that you can’t polish shit.
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