Before the reign of rap queens and thumping electro-house, boy bands ruled the music industry.
From the early ’90s to the early ’00s, boy bands enjoyed a fan mania rarely seen since the glory days of The Beatles.
WATCH: Backstreet Boys perform I Want It That Way over video chat
TV viewers couldn’t get enough of reality shows like Making The Band and Simon Cowell’s The X Factor, and young girls literally swooned over the front men from the likes of *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block.
New Idea take a trip down memory lane with this list of the world’s most famous boy bands of the 1990s and beyond.
10. Dream Street
In the late ’90s, American heart throb Jesse McCartney joined forces with Matt Ballinger, Frankie Galasso, Greg Raposo and Chris Tousdale to create the downright dreamy but extremely short-lived teen boy band, Dream Street.
The group enjoyed success with their eponymous 2001 studio album which included hits like I Say Yeah, but major fame was short lived for this five piece band and they parted ways soon after to pursue solo careers and other projects.
9. 5ive
British boy band 5ive was created as the male alternative to the Spice Girls back in the mid ’90s.
Singers Scott Robinson, Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville, J Brown and Abz Love topped the UK charts with songs like the 1998 banger When the Lights Go Out (don’t say you don’t know it).
8. B2K
American foursome B2K just about fits the profile of a ’90s boy band as they came together right before the millennium.
Lil’ Fizz, J-Boog, Raz-B and Omarion – who went on to enjoy a relatively successful solo career – stole the hearts of American girls with their album Pandemonium! which included hits like Bump, Bump, Bump.
B2K disbanded in 2004 to let Omarion pursue his own path.
7. O-Town
All good ’90s kids remember the MTV reality show Making The Band, and the most famous group to come out of the series was probably O-Town.
Fronted by American singer-songwriter Ashley Parker Angel, the budding pop stars started their career on a solid footing with the 2001 studio album O-Town (how original) but endured a major flop with their second release 02 one year later.
The band unexpectedly reunited in 2014 without Angel to release a third album called Lines & Circles, and they’re still doing their thing!
6. Westlife
Irish pop group Westlife was voted the best boy band of all time by 12 million MTV viewers in a 2012 poll, beating out The Wanted and Disney superstars The Jonas Brothers.
The foursome came out top of 32 bands in the poll which was created using an American and European audience.
Formed in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland, the band originally consisted of Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and Delta Goodrem’s ex flame Bryan McFadden, who left the group in 2004 to pursue a solo career.
They were initially signed by Simon Cowell, who is also credited with manufacturing the 10s’ biggest boyband, One Direction, in the UK and Clive Davis in the US and managed by Irish producer Louis Walsh and Sonny Takhar.
Westlife enjoyed worldwide success with hit singles like If I Let You Go, I Wanna Grow Old With You, a cover of Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, Fool Again, Flying Without Wings, Bop Bop Baby and Queen of My Heart.
The band won multiple awards including one World Music Award, two Brit Awards and four MTV Awards.
5. Take That
Perhaps the most famous boy band from the UK, British pop group Take That was formed in Manchester back in 1989 modelled on the already successful New Kids on the Block.
Originally called Kick It and created with five band members, the line up consisted of Gary Barlow, Robbie Williams, Jason Orange, Howard Donald and Mark Owen.
The young teen group’s first public performance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990 where they performed singer-songwriter Barlow’s unreleased song My Kind of Girl, but their breakthrough hit would be a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit It Only Takes a Minute.
That success was followed by Barlow’s self-written ballad A Million Love Songs and a smash hit cover of Barry Manilow’s Could It Be Magic.
The hugely popular boy band won the Best Live Act award at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards but that year was also the beginning of the end for Take That as they knew it when Robbie Williams left the group before their scheduled world tour. The musician went on to have quite the successful solo career.
4. New Kids on the Block
One of the first and most popular boy bands of their time, NKOTB had a string of smash hits thanks to the chemistry of the band members Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and real life brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight.
The group started off with a standard self-titled debut album in 1986, releasing another in 1988 and one more in 1990.
The boys took a break after their fourth release Face the Music but reunited in 2013 for an epic ’90s boy band tour with the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men.
3. Boyz II Men
And speaking of the iconic Boyz II Men, they’re next on our list!
These R&B giants smashed onto the entertainment scene with their 1991 debut studio album Cooleyhighharmony (hey, at least it wasn’t another self-titled collection) and it’s biggest singalong hit End of the Road.
Their 1994 offering II and 1997 album Evolution elevated the four-piece boy band to new heights thanks to the unforgettable track, I’ll Make Love to You.
The boys lagged a bit coming into the ’00s, failing to secure a chart topper, but they continued to release new studio albums with their most recent creation Under the Streetlight hitting shelves in 2017.
2. The Backstreet Boys
They need no introduction, and Backstreet never needs to come back in our minds – they’ve never left!
One of the world’s most popular boy bands with the strongest track record of chart topping hits, BSB rose to fame in Europe in the early ’90s by gaining a strong fan base in Germany – an unusual move for an American boy band.
The group, made up of AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson and the girls’ favourite, Nick Carter, won the hearts of the American industry with the 1997 studio album Backstreet Boys, before winning international acclaim with 1999’s Millennium.
It warms our hearts to hum along to BSB hit singles like Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), I Want It That Way and Larger Than Life – seriously, we wish it was the ’90s again.
The five-piece boy band surprised fans with the release of In A World Like This in 2013 and went on tour with the album in June 2015.
1. *NSYNC
The kings, emperors, sheikhs, lords – call them what you will – *NSYNC take the crown for the world’s most popular, most famous ’90s boy band. EVER.
The iconic American boy band was formed in Orlando, Florida in 1995 and, just like Backstreet Boys, first launched in Germany thanks to a deal with BMG Ariola Munich.
*NSYNC was a five-piece arrangement comprised of Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone and Lance Bass.
WATCH: Justin Timberlake says he’s hooked up with a Spice Girl (Article continues after video)
The boys enjoyed stratospheric success with early songs like I Want You Back, Tearin’ Up My Heart and (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You, before bursting world record sales with the 2000’s studio album No Strings Attached featuring the smash hit Bye Bye Bye.
The five enjoyed international superstardom and multiple Grammy nominations, performing and recording with a laundry list of the world’s greatest including Michael Jackson, Elton John, Britney Spears and Stevie Wonder, until it became clear that Justin Timberlake’s charisma was just a bit (a lot) brighter than the other four.
But proving there’s no bad blood, the group reunited for an incredible performance at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards.
Aw.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
