There is no shame in the boy band game.
Larger than Life: Reign of the Boy Bands, a new documentary from Paramount+, looks at the evolution of magical male music groups ranging from the Beatles and the Jackson 5 to One Direction and K-pop’s Seventeen. Although some members were never fond of the term, the film is a musical celebration of the successful groups — and how their female fans, dismissed as overemotional “fangirls,” helped make them what they are.
The doc includes a star-studded list of boy band favorites: Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block, Lance Bass and Chris Kirkpatrick of NSync, AJ McLean of Backstreet Boys, Nick Lachey and Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Michael Bivins of New Edition. like Donnie Osmond and the Hanson brothers – who shared their reflections.
Tamra Davis’ film also gets into the drama: group rivalry, bad blood over artists going solo (looking at YouJustin Timberlake), worthless contracts and scam managers.
A different ‘boy’ for every fangirl
Larger than life is a quick and gripping look at how, after the success of Elvis Presley, all-male groups came to fruition. With four and five members, they had an even broader appeal because there would be a fun, talented guy for every fangirl – the healthy one, the bad boy, the sensitive one, the fitness fanatic.
“The Beatles deserve all the credit in the world for spawning so many boy band groups over the years,” Bivins said.
Although the guys themselves admitted that sometimes they went out of their way to pay the bill.
“Archetypes of boy bands [are] hilarious,” Bass said of NSync. “Justin was the ‘young heartthrob.’ Chris was the ‘crazy one.’ I was the ‘shy one.’ Then you read it so many times that you started to fall into that trope. You start to get the feeling, ‘Well, this isn’t me, but this is what people want.’
McLean laughed at being labeled Backstreet’s bad boy: “I’m the biggest pushover in the world.”
Bivins talked about how the members of New Edition tried to distinguish themselves from the others with their signature moves and styles, such as Bobby Brown’s ‘pelvic thrusts’, Ralph Tresvant’s pop-locking or Ricky Bell tipping his hat.
Bad deals and no breaks
Backstreet Boys and NSync were founded by Lou Pearlman, who was something of a boy band mastermind in the 1990s and turned out to be a con man. The members of those groups talked about being overworked and lacking financially. Pearlman – through his Trans Continental company – has made massive cuts.
“The first contract will never be in your favor,” said Johnny Wright, who ran both Backstreet and NSync.
That’s an understatement. McLean talked about touring and recording “for nine years straight,” then burning out and battling addiction.
Bass said his group, which lived and worked together in the beginning, didn’t get paid until “years later.” When Kirkpatrick saw the check – for $10,000 – he realized he had made more money working at Outback Steakhouse in the days before his fame.
Bass said they “worked for these guys for free.”
Wright explained that Pearlman accounted for 85 percent of his group’s revenue, while the talent got 15 percent. Pearlman also got a share of the 15% because he negotiated it so that he was ⅙ a member of the band.
“Moreover, [the contracts are] very, very hard to get out,” Bass said. NSync and Backstreet Boys both engaged in a legal battle to break away from Pearlman and ultimately won.
“Every boy band has a sore spot in their career with someone,” Bivins said. “The manager, the producer, the record label. It’s just the nature of the beast, man.”
Band versus band rivalry
The film shows how NSync started as a Backstreet Boys clone. The group was founded by Pearlman with the same manager, producers and essentially the same formula. At first, Pearlman did not tell the Backstreet Boys about NSync, using a code name (“B5”) to refer to the band.
The Backstreet Boys blew up first. After releasing a Rolling Stone cover, they decided to turn down a Disney special they were planning to do because they thought their audience had evolved, Wright said. NSync stepped in for the special.
“The Disney special was their launching pad and overnight they blew up,” said McLean, whose Backstreet Boys saw their fame overshadowed by NSync.
Wright said the Backstreet Boys were “upset,” explaining, “They felt like, we were the first. You went to get these second guys. So we feel like you’ve kind of betrayed us now.
The two groups had to sit separately at the awards ceremony.
The bands talked about what MTVs are like Total request live created competition between the groups – and other boy bands.
“Every video we put out was No. 1, No. 2, No. 1, No. 2,” McLean said. “And then NSync came out, and then you had 98 degrees. It was just a non-stop battle.”
Kirkpatrick added, “The bigger the rivalry got, the bigger each bond became.”
Bass wishes it had all been a little friendlier.
“Friendly competition is great,” he said, “and I wish it had stayed that way. I would have liked this to have been a Motown. All in the past [Motown] groups were signed together, they would tour with each other. They would make songs. It was a family affair.”
With NSync and Backstreet Boys, both under Trans Continental, it was “not a family affair.”
“Every boy band has to have that rivalry,” said Bivins, whose New Edition competed against Menudo.
Bitter feelings about breakout stars
As a member of a boy band with big dreams, you want to be the first to break out if you have solo aspirations. Think: Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and Justin Timberlake.
“There are always members of the band who feel like they can take it a step further and go solo,” Wright said. “Usually you get maybe one, maybe two” that make it, “but for everyone else, sometimes it’s career-ending.”
Bass said that NSync would take a temporary hiatus in 2002 after a heavy schedule. Timberlake didn’t rest. He recorded solo music and emerged as a solo artist. The rest of the band continued to flap in the wind.
“Justin was going to start work on his solo album, which we were super supportive of,” Bass said. “I thought that was a great idea. The label told us, ‘Look, come back in six months,’ and we would go straight to the next album. That just never happened. So [NSync ] simply completed without any fuss, without saying goodbye. We just never got back together.” (They reunited in 2023 at the MTV VMAs. They recorded “Better Place” for Trolls unite.)
Kirkpatrick admitted it was “hard” when Timberlake left. “In the beginning there was a lot of hostility. There was a lot of anger. There was a lot of outrage. I remember thinking, are we ever going to get together again?
Wright said: “From Justin’s point of view, if he has the No. 1 album in the country and he’s getting offers to tour the world, it’s like, how do you get back to that? I must fulfill this. It’s not that I’m saying goodbye, it’s just that I can’t stop this.”
Bass said, “From a business perspective, I understand that. Justin has the most talent in the world and we wanted to give him that respect. But tell us.”
Female fans are the superpower of boy bands
Ever since the Beatles, where the Fab Four stopped touring because they couldn’t hear their music over the screaming girls, female fans have been turned away. The movie pushed that narrative back. Yve Blake, who wrote the musical Fangirlsasked, “What if we didn’t undermine young women who express their enthusiasm for things they care about?”
Wahlberg said that “a lot of the criticism… leveled at boy bands” was “because of the screaming fans. Everyone was so bothered by these female fans, and it was like, don’t they have eyes and ears? Do they have no taste?”
McLean said, “We wouldn’t be who we are without the fans,” with Bivins calling them “the most successful piece in the thread from the Beatles to K-pop… Without the young girl, there is no scream.”[ing]There is no audience, there really is no poster, the lyrics have no one to sing to.”
While people may have mocked boy bands and their fans, they are a loyal audience. Today, the girls are women who spend their money on reunion trips, cruises and fan conventions. They go with their old childhood friends or bring their children, making it a multi-generational experience.
“The great thing about having young fans who grew up with your music is that they grow up with you,” Lachey said.
Wahlberg said: “Boy band fans all have the last laugh. They are mothers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians. They have positions of power all over the country. Our fans have become the new gatekeepers.”
Larger than life: Reign of the Boybands is now streaming on Paramount+.
