To a lot of music lovers, the first concert they see is a big deal. It apparently makes a huge statement about their music taste and speaks to their level of cultural awareness. If they're lucky, they see a group that was not only very in when they saw it, but will be so famous that when they tell their children what the first band they ever saw live was, they will have to be impressed. Personally, I don't buy into putting such high value on the first concert somebody sees. A concert is a concert. The first one you see says nothing more about you than the second one you see. I have come to believe this because the first concert I ever saw was the Jonas Brothers in 2009, and I refuse to allow anybody to read into that.
In eighth grade, I would have been proud to tell anybody that I was seeing the Jonas Brothers for my first concert. I was an unashamed fan. I had t-shirts, I knew the words to every song and I celebrated their birthdays. I was the most typical teenybopper there was, but I wasn't alone. Of course, there were plenty of girls who were not the Jonas Brother fan type (they missed out on all the fun, but also are probably a lot less embarrassed about their middle school years). But, there were also plenty of girls who were just as obsessed as I was. There was a pseudo-cult of awkward preteen girls screaming the lyrics to "Burnin' Up" and arguing about who gets Nick when we all eventually meet the band.
Nobody should be surprised by the hype surrounding the Jo Bros. Boy bands are to pop culture today as poodle skirts and the hand jive were to pop culture in the 50's (side note: all my 50's pop culture information comes from "Grease" and therefore might not be entirely accurate). In the early 2000's, we had the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. I want to say that these bands were cultural icons, but that might upset some music snobs, so I'll just say that they were a very, very big deal. You naturally could only be loyal to one. I was a dedicated Backstreet Boys supporter, and I knew the dance to "Bye Bye Bye" -- not knowing that dance was pretty much admitting that you lived under a rock.
The Backstreet Boys were great. They could sing and dance in perfect synchronization and they all rocked some pretty unique facial hair. Their songs were super catchy and had wonderfully cheesy lyrics. And while I'm not trying to claim they're a group of musical geniuses or that their sound is incredibly unique (especially with N'Sync lurking around), they were extremely likeable. And a group of likable, fairly talented and kind of attractive young men who could do things in unison is enough to make teenyboppers go ballistic. The Jonas Brothers followed this same pattern, and got the same success.
The most recent development in the history of boy bands is One Direction. One Direction has all the attributes of the Backstreet Boys and the Jonas Brothers, and they have the added asset of being British, so their success should really come as no surprise. I'm proud to say I have grown up enough that I am not a hyperventilating, obsessive One Direction fan. That's not to say I'm not a fan at all; I'm just a more casual, distant one. After all, you can never fully outgrow a love for boy bands.
Rebecca Hutchinson is a freshman majoring in International Relations. She can be reached at rebecca.hutchinson@tufts.edu
