Ultimately, we took every boy band argument on a case-by-case basis, and came to some difficult conclusions. If anything, what really unites boy bands throughout history comes not in their conception, but in their reception: How young, rabid and ear-splittingly friggin’ loud was their fanbase? If the answer is at least “very” to all three of these, you’re already 80 percent of the way there. This week, Billboard is celebrating this venerated pop institution with a week of boy band-related coverage, starting with our list of the 100 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time - spanning nearly the entire Hot 100 era, and recognizing the absolute tops in innocent male harmonies and synchronized dance moves.īut what is a boy band, you may ask? Ask any two music fans that question and you might get answers as varied as if you asked a 47-year-old FM DJ and a 19-year-old SoundCloud rapper to define “hip-hop.” There are common elements most everyone can agree on as being obviously boy band-core, natch: the aforementioned harmonies and dancing, as well as matching outfits, major pop choruses, a puppet-string-pulling svengali behind the scenes, a general sense of ridiculousness (and a relative lack of self-consciousness), and of course, youth.īut aside from basic membership - by pretty much all definitions, boy bands need to have at least three members and be all male - there’s no one unifying factor that links every boy band in history name any classic trope of the format and we can name at least two obvious boy bands who it doesn’t apply to. Pizza-Maker Teen Summer Rios Stuns With Audition on 'America's Got Talent' Watch

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