Flashback Friday! From NKOTB to BSB: Boy Bands Through The Years

 Image by Splash News

I like to pretend I was born listening to good music like Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but the truth is, I wasn’t belting out Run Like Hell at five years old—it was Please Don’t Go Girl.

And you were, too. As much as we want to pretend it never happened, we were all into popular boy bands at some point in our lives.

Whether it’s NKOTB or The Backstreet Boys, you know you were jamming to it on your Sony Walkman and/or Discman. Here’s a look at popular boy bands throughout the years. And no, The Beatles didn’t make the list.

I’ve done a lot of blasphemous things, but putting The Beatles on the same list as the Backstreet Boys is reprehensible.

The 70s: The Jackson 5: I really don’t care how cheesy it is, I will blare ABC in my car if it comes on the radio (or if I happened to have burned it to a 70s pop compilation CD). The group initially included Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael.

The 80s: New Kids on the Block: Jordan, Joe, Jonny, Don, Danny! Producer Maurice Starr formed the group 1984 and they shot to popularity only a few years later. Among their hits were, Step by Step, You Got It (The Right Stuff), and Please Don’t Go Girl. They’ve recently had a resurgence because the public is obsessed with irony.

Early Nineties: Boys II Men: They knew they hit the scene when the R&B group recorded a single with Mariah Carey, One Sweet Day. Yeah, remember singles? When you thought you got a badass deal on a CD only to find there was only one song on it?

Late Nineties: The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC: The Backstreet Boys released their debut album in 1996. But their 1999 album Millennium is what shot them into superstardom. They’re the best-selling boy band of all time, having sold over 130 million records. I mean, grocery stores have to play something at one in the morning. There was nothing slowing down The Backstreet Boys in the late nineties. Except *NSYNC. JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, and the other guy that wasn’t either of those people formed the group in 1995. They received a lot of accolades, but the most notable is Justin Timberlake banging Mila Kunis.

2009: The Jonas Brothers: I have noticed that as I go further down this list, I’ve become more disgusted. Although it might not be so much that the music sucks as it is me being old. Because I’m sure teeny boppers that lose their sh-t over Jobro feel the same way girls did about The Jackson 5. In 2008, the group was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys. By 2009, they sold over eight million albums.

Now: Justin Bieber: Beatlemania, Jacksonitis, and now Bieber Fever. Justin Bieber has become so popular, girls are physically threatening his girlfriend Selena Gomez. A few months ago, two girls broke into his hotel room a la A Hard Day’s Night. Most people don’t get that much action twenty years after they hit puberty, much less before it.