New Kids on the Block vs. Take That vs. Backstreet Boys vs. *NSync

wait what is a "take that"

robbie williams old band

NKOTB had the worst songs ("Cover Girl" and "Step By Step" the only listenable ones) but Jon Knight is teh cute.

stop playing those games alfred

"Bye Bye Bye" was the first single by any of them to make me say "oh okay, I get it now." Spent many years not having the fun I could've had. I like the others in retrospect—a grudging like—but I must go with *NSync here.

N Sync i guess. i like some Robbie Williams solo stuff but i have no idea if Take That sounds anything like that. One Direction too new for the poll i guess but they have a joint or two.

BSB had the best ballads.

e.g. "Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely," "Quit Playing Games...," and "As Long As You Love Me."

but NSync's "Gone" is a killer.

Yeah, I didn't include One Direction because they could be the biological sons of members of any of the other groups.

I was a big NSYNC fangirl and they were the most musically ~interesting~ but I feel like BSB songs have held up better

and they were so harmless! even Nick Carter was like a pretty foal you wanted to feed oats to from your hand.

I'm actually pretty shocked at how well "I Want it That Way" held up after all those years

Once put "If You Go Away" on a Top 10...just checked, and it still sounds good. That's about all I like from the Americans, don't know anything by the other.

Oh man, listening to "Please Don't Go Girl" right now and this would never pass muster in the era of pitch correction and autotune. I kind of like how rough it is.

Joey couldn't hit those notes a year later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F26hRlALWR4

Do the National Review cruises look like that?

NRO cruising looks like that

nsync really were interesting

BB have a bunch of classics

the other two suck balls

only one in that group does iirc

i really like Take That. it's either Take That or BSB

NKOTB were supercute tho.
hmm

Boyz II Men you disgusting savages

wtf @ u

Anyone remember a hardcore band at the time made up of 12-year-olds? Christgau gave their album or B+ or something...All their songs were about getting too much homework and stuff like that. Completely blanking out on the name.

old skull?

That's it--thanks.

before voting please consider the video for the first take that single. 'do what you like'. thank you.

They were 9, not 12; Christgau gave them a B, not B+; and, according to him, they sang about Reagan and AIDs and homelessness and hot dogs, not homework. But their album came out right in the midst of New Kids mania.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtEmcruWTso

I like "If You Go Away" a whole bunch more.

No Boyzone no credibility...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAOE2E9zxks

No wait, Boyzone = no credibility

Boyz II Men you disgusting savages

― Arty, Noisy, Weird, Funky, Punky Pope (crüt), Monday, February 11, 2013 6:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This poll question is a bit like being asked what type of cancer you'd like to have.

BSB by a very long way (musically)

NKOTB - before my time but i couldn't even name a song - they don't seem to have entered the pop canon at all
TT - maybe my lack of caring about them is coloured by the fact that their peak coincided with the very brief period of my life when i'd dismiss bands because i wasn't ~supposed~ to like them, boy bands were for girls etc. but then i did like several songs by east 17 (their british rivals, americans) and there are no TT songs i feel would make me reconsider nowadays. given how fucking boring gary barlow is now, and what a contemptible fool robbie williams turned out to be solo, i was probably right all along
BSB - SO many classics, both the ballads ("show me the meaning of being lonely" 4eva) and the bangers (they basically invented max martin with "larger than life" etc). i own their greatest hits and pretty much everything on it is a keeper
NS - i really like the obvious singles of their latter years, they were never inescapable over here though; feel like i'd probably like more of their stuff if i heard it, but the time has passed really

weirdly i can't remember actually being attracted to any of the dudes in any of these bands

obv justin, but only after he left

first Take That vid is ALL TIME
please consider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpqAXZI0s0s

lex you were RONG about take that

admit it

Boyz II Men are so far above any of these four it's comic, they do not deserve to be named in this company. I have a lot of love for Take That and the Backstreet Boys have some jams for sure but "Water Runs Dry" is fucking bitchin' by any reasonable standard, come on, and that's post-peak Boyz.

N*Sync I think has the best musicians/singers/dancers of this lot but I can't stand that Swedish-hit-factory/Baby-One-More-Time sound, something about it creeps me the fuck out. NKOTB are a laugh riot. That leaves BSB vs. Take That, and BSB are in the same production line as N*Sync aren't they? They sound better to me though. Still, Take That have "Sure" and "Back For Good" which are both aces in my book, plus being American I could basically ignore them and never have to think about them if I didn't wanna, so Take That wins. Also whichever one's rocking the dreads on that one sleeve - Robbie Williams? - earns your vote with some of the most heinous dreads ever rocked.

Yaaaay I knew I liked you for more than yr pretty scarves Mr Tyler

HOWARD had dreads
and they weren't that heinous

well I'll let these dreads speak for themselves

http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu11/take_that_lurve/Take%20That/Howard%20Donald/howardspeak3.jpg

you just made 19 yo me swoon fyi

Wikipedia with inadvertent Take That slashfic

During the Beautiful World Tour in 2007, Donald suffered a collapsed lung after performing a series of gymnastic stunts on stage, and was kept on a hospital ward for the two days, while the rest of the band performed as a threesome

BSB have "I Want It That Way".
And nobody else on this list does.

Boyz II Men are so far above any of these four it's comic, they do not deserve to be named in this company.

Yeah, I didn't even consider aligning them with this bunch. They were a whole 'nother thing.

a whole other layer of bland? The early post-New Jack singles aside, I still haven't learned how to appreciate those massive ballads.

BSB.

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/you-can-t-keep-calm-if-you-love-take-that.png

idk anything about nkotb or take that but bsb had so many more good songs than nsync

98 Degrees always had 4 guys IIRC

Didn't B2M have four member?

Michael McCray left (at least ostensibly) for health reasons

lol why did I look at that acronym and think "Butt 2 Mouth? waht"

98 Degrees were never a going concern in my sphere, so I'm not surprised I was wrong about the number of members.

Sorry, Michael McCray. :(

I thought "Buggers 2morrow"

Meanwhile, religious married man Brian Littrell is the least likely to fool around with groupies

I knew it!

I dont know how many women over 18 were really in to these groups, now that I think about it

It's been a few years and they're all over 18 now.

Although if the number of women I know my age who want to smash Justin Bieber to tiny pieces is any indication, their appeal probably wasn't as limited as you suspect.

Brian Littrell is the least likely

"least likely" implies there's some wiggle room in there.

"Quit Playing Games With My Heart" was their first big US hit, "Backstreet's Back" was second.

huh was under the impression at the time that "Quit Playing Games" was bigger outside the states, but I just checked and it actually went to no. 2 on the charts. i still think of "Everybody" as the song that really made them huge though, prob because of the video.

East 17: Classic or Dud?

considering they namedrop NKOTB, surprised no one's mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHuGG_FsC20

Lead guy died of leukemia btw. :(

Yeah, I heard "Games" way more at the time. That song was everywhere. xxp

It's possible my relative perception of the two songs' popularity is influenced by the fact that the r&b station here played "Quit Playing Games" and never touched "Backstreet's Back".

eh they were both massive and inescapable IIRC

lol and mine because i lived on a diet of MTV xpost

Yeah, possibly. I just happened to have heard the one 1000 times that year and the other like 10 times that year.

on a related note this is insane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin_production_discography

East 17 were terrible and no-one should talk about them imo

wasn't there also a super terrible group named 5ive

Yes. Here are some more third rate uk boy bands with numbers for a band name:

A1: Who reached number 1 with a cover of 'Take on Me'
911: Their most memorable single being 'Party People... Friday Night'

I don't think anyone was as horribly misconceived as the original Making the Band group O-Town

I mean, "Liquid Dreams" is seriously one of the worst songs in the universe

Lead guy died of leukemia btw. :(

Poor Rich Cronin. I really like Summer Girls but I mostly remember his war with ONTD over some perverted emails.

what kind of title is 'Party People... Friday Night'? Put friday night in brackets you monsters!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul_hcxlA5KU

Brian Harvey from East 17: last seen posting a video online of the forced installation of a pre-payment electricity meter at his house, after repeatedly failing to pay Southern Electric outstanding charges on his electricity bill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCiowdcHJ0U

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

This poll question is a bit like being asked what type of cancer you'd like to have.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Monday, February 11, 2013 11:39 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

East 17 stay another day rules over all this pussywank

Pfft gtfo noob east 17's standout will always be 'alright'

And tbrr house of love and home rank higher than that christmas bellringing shit

peace out

anyone talking about East 17 itt will heretofore be lifebanned forever

Didn't tony mortimer have a big cock, too?

According to smash hits apr 95 iirc

What size?

I dont have an exact length confirmed, but one of his favourite pranks was to slip it into the mic holder for the slow numbers and let brian croon into the eye of it while the fans went wild

tony, what a character

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

fair results.

nkotb/take that: cage fite

take THAT

;_;

damn yanks

The fuck are NKOTB ranked the same as some made-up bullshit that didn't even exist? Might as well rate them with O Town or whatever.

MADE UP BULLSHIT HOW DARE U

I can kind of get with Take That's poor performance, as outside of "Back For Good" they had virtually no US presence, but NKOTB having only 6 votes means ilm is skewing younger than I'd previously imagined.

East 17 were terrible and no-one should talk about them imo

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:49 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

'House of Love' is as good as music can get

music videos too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a3ETB5QFrM

hate u