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Music : December 03, 2000

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Teenybop pop

Vinod Advani

The writer is an expert on Western music, and lives in Mumbai.

This has to be a conspiracy. One that is secretly planned, plotted and perfectly executed by rival record companies. Highly paid music honchos are doing something unknown to the music lover. They are manufacturing boy bands.This is not a fantasy. How else can one account for the number of girl groups and boy bands that sprout every six months or so like a rash of wild mushrooms? Is there, therefore, a secret factory somewhere in the innards of America that manufactures groups designed to sell pop to teeny boppers?

The members of N'Sync.

If you are a serious rock and roller or even a pop music fan, you're probably wondering what the next big thing in music will be. Stop holding your breath. The musical equivalent of fast food is being perfected and sold to you. In the form of teenybop pop. Regardless of your age, whether you are 16 or 60, your life, whether you like it or not, is now being ruled by bland concoctions. Junk food, Hollywood, soap operas, talk shows and now teenybop pop rule. You are, and you have probably not realised it, the innocent victim. And guess who is laughing all the way to the bank?

Last year, the BSB's (Backstreet Boys) third album shocked industry watchers by selling more than one million albums in its first week of release. That's six zeroes to which another zero is added to give you a sales figure of $ten million (if one were to calculate an average price of $10 an album sold). This year, Millenium's record was broken by another boy band. 'Nsync's No Strings Attached, released in March sold two million-plus within a week of its release.

Now look at how girl pop stars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera have fared. Both bitter rivals, they have one thing in common. A massive fan following which translates into massive album sales which translates into massive amounts of money which translates to ecstatic industry executives which translates to good business for banks. Feel left out of this happy-happy circle? Don't be. Your money has made the difference to their kitty.

Whatever be your opinion of teenybop pop, a singular fact is crystal clear. It is the most successful musical movement in the U.S. since Kurt Cobain killed himself, which in turn killed Grunge, the last big musical genre that was a cheerful money spinner. Like it or not, whatever happens in the United States in pop culture, be it art, film or music, it has its ripple effect on the rest of the world. Call it Kulcher, with suitable disdain. But Kulcher, like it or not, sells. And whenever vast amounts of money are made publicly, people rush in to confer respectability.

For example, would you have ever believed that the pioneer of rock journalism worldwide, the esteemed Rolling Stones would feature BSBs as their reader selected artists of the year, by stating, "Boy bands, guy rock, what's the big difference?" Popularity, as we can clearly see, is a great persuader. A New York critic declared, that 'Nsync are, " talented young men who have taken the modern male choir to the next level." Maybe he thought they were singing Mahler? Recently in a concert, BSBs shared the stage with no less an artiste than Sting. How could the latter have allowed this to happen? It was as strange as if Govinda and Kamal Hassan would act together.

So where does the appeal come from? Well, each member of BSBs, Boyzone, 98:, Code Red, 'Nsync, is chosen for looks, physique and dancing ability. Never mind if you cannot compose or sing well, all that can come later. Accomplished songwriters are brought in to compose songs that will not challenge the vocal pipes of the boys.

The songs are variations of only two themes. The first in the lightly funky type, the kind of pumped up beat that you can exercise to. Example? 'Nsyncs' new hit Bye Bye Bye, which seems to appeal to ages as low as five years. The second theme is the soothing ballad kind. The kind of song that works as a balm for your wound. The kind of song you wave both your hands to in the air from right to left to right. Example, Celine Dion's massive hit from the Titanic block buster, "My Heart Will Go On."

If record labels do not wish to engage songwriters, its much easier to buy other people's already recorded songs. Example? Almost all of Boyzone's number one hits are those composed and sung to Bee Gees and Cat Stevens. Not that the Bee Gees are complaining, what with the hefty sums of money coming their way as rights and royalty.

It works differently for the girls. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore are all projected as nubile nymphets whom you can lust after but not touch. They are tight bodied, unbuttoned, pin-up fantasies and that's what they'll always remain. Lolita fantasies, especially in the case of 16-year-old Mandy Moore. Britney sings songs like "Do it to me one more time" and then states publicly that she will remain a virgin till she gets married. Likewise Christine, whose recent No. one hit has lyrics like "I'm a genie in a bottle, You got to rub me the right way".

Teenybop pop existed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s too. Except that the basic idea has dramatically shifted from originality to imitation. In those decades, writing, producing and instrument playing was also done by others. But at least the songs were memorable. There was craft, there was melody, and at times there was even quirkiness. There were the white boybands like the Osmonds and Take That. There were the black boybands like the Jackson Five and Boyz II Men.

Today, the music boy bands are so bland and so sound alike, it's almost not music. It's bubblegum to be chewed. It's not a trip to Disney land, it's living life permanently inside Disneyland. Finally it is baffling. How else do you explain the following lyrics to a hit called "I Want It That Way?" First the guy sings, "Believe me when I say, I want it that way? " Then, he sings to his girl, "I never wanna hear you say, I want it that way." To which I say, No Way Anyway.