Boybands Are Back, Alright! Why 90s Boybands Are Having Their Moment
Grab your headphones and CD player, babe, because your favourite boybands are back!
In a world where content is endless and someone can have a number one hit just on TikTok, why are we reverting back to our classic boyband ways? Comfort? Nostalgia? Community? How about all of the above!
The term ‘boyband’ is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a small ensemble of males in their teens or twenties who play pop songs geared especially to a young female audience”. Essentially, the girlies make the boyband. We need them for our culture.
Enter the blueprint; bands like Take That, Blue, Five, NKOTB, NSYNC, O-Town. The younger generations are going back to the “ancient” texts and discovering them in a way that makes them feel shiny and new once more. Hell, the bands we nineties kids grew up with are starting on their comeback tours. Way to make us feel old, huh?! There is more music to consume, and a lot of these members are still around. They can interact with new and old fans. You can sing along to All Rise in the car with your mom and act like it isn’t weird to be screaming the lyrics together. Essentially, the boyband is cool once again. But why?
Nostalgia
With everything going on in the world at the moment, music has always had a way of uniting people. Pop culture and musical nostalgia are a very powerful combination. Currently, we’re seeing an endless number of reboots, sequels, rewatch podcasts, and anniversary tours popping up across our platforms. Our favourite stars are still kicking and want to relive the glory days, and that makes us want to, too. Three years ago, I saw O-Town perform at a local event in Beverly Hills, and it’s safe to say that I went crazy. Seeing those men in matching outfits dancing to a song called Liquid Dreams brought me right back to prancing around my room in pigtails when I was seven years old. For a moment, nothing mattered. My worries dissolved, and I was back in a time where it felt like nothing mattered.
The 90s are a decade people tend to be nostalgic for, even if they never experienced it. It’s an aesthetic where things seemed fun and lively. Right now, the decade isn’t too long ago, but it also wasn’t too recent. New music styles emerged in the 90s and created different subcultures. There was grunge, hip hop, boybands, and so much more. One thing was for sure: these artists were having fun and trying new things. Most of the videos, performances, and fashions are available to consume today, and newer fans are able to fall down the rabbit hole.
Community
Fandoms are stronger than ever, and so is searching for another band to bond over. Community is a pillar in life, and bonding with people who like the same things as you is a truly irreplaceable feeling. The first time I really noticed this in action was when I went to see Barbie in theatres. People of all ages were dressed up to sit in the dark theatre together. There was a sense of togetherness and relatability. This feeling is something that has then taken over the world – look at The Eras Tour, Chappel Roan’s tour, and most recently, Doechii as prime examples. Musicians are giving their fandoms even more ways to connect, and that’s something us fans will thrive upon.
Boybands do the same. All boybands have a ‘thing’ that makes them marketable. It might be their dancing, their music style, or their wardrobe. For a lot of them, it’s just being conventionally attractive. But with boybands, what they provide are options. Each member has a different identity within the group that the fans can identify with. They mimicked a friend group where the stereotypes are still alive today.
And in my opinion, KPOP has ushered in a whole new audience. One Direction and The Wanted didn’t dance. They didn’t train to be the classic pop stars that used to grace our MTV screens. A whole generation had no idea what they were missing until the rise of KPOP. Boybands didn’t always sit on a couch or walk around the stage in a certain pattern. Being able to dance and have interesting yet still accessible choreography was part of the job. Bands like BTS and Stray Kids have ushered in that new audience, packaging up a high-performing stage presence with a polished, nostalgic bow.
Familiarity
People are listening to more boybands these days because they’re familiar. Of course, the element of nostalgia plays an important part, but being comfortable and in a safe space also plays equally as important of a role.
Diving back into songs that make you feel good and don’t tie you to negativity is something we all do. Many boybands do just that. My friends think I’m crazy because I collect NSYNC dolls. Not only that, but I display them proudly in my living room. Why? Because they make me feel like myself. Listening to NSYNC is like taking a deep breath. I first listened to NSYNC before I was old enough to tie the songs to any specific memories. This means I can freely listen to any one of their songs, and it puts me in a good mood.
Going back to the familiar and surrounding myself with things that are comfortable is what brings me unparalleled levels of joy in my adult life. Listening to boybands has that effect on people. They make you feel seen and safe, attached to memories of times where you were part of something much larger than what was going on in your mundane life.
In the end, there is a certain warmth in revisiting those familiar tunes, a reminder of afternoons spent singing along and nights spent dreaming to the soundtrack of youth. Boybands may have evolved, but their essence – the joy, the energy, the shared memories – remains timeless. Being able to access these songs at any moment and pass them along to friends old and new keeps that magic alive, letting us carry a piece of the past into our present. It is in these echoes of yesterday that we find a comforting sense of continuity, a gentle nod to the moments that shaped us.
