Ever since Boy Band premiered on ABC earlier this summer, people have been expressing mixed reviews and concerns. For those who don’t know, Boy Band is a singing competition that auditions boys ranging anywhere from fourteen to twenty years old to ultimately narrow down and be chosen for a five-person boy band. As someone who has been watching the show since the first episode, I can tell you that there are many things I wish I could change. Eventually, I decided that if I was going to write an article about Boy Band, I should ask around Twitter to see how others felt, and if their opinions were similar to mine. So I tweeted out asking for opinions and ended up receiving just enough to narrow them down and compile a list.
Rita Ora
She is the host of Boy Band, but, by the looks of it and responses from fans, not a very successful one. She is disliked as a host for many reasons including her ability to take up time playing dress up and the way she manages to drape herself around every underage boy she stands near. During the auditions alone, she got eighteen-year-old Devin Hayes to serenade her with the all too familiar lyrics to Closer and cheered like a schoolgirl with judge Emma Bunton when she got a selfie with nineteen-year-old Chance Perez who happens to have a two-year-old daughter. Rita’s all around behavior on the show can be summed up in one word: immature.
Making Contestants Out to be Someone They’re Not
In the last episode, Sergio Calderon and Devin Hayes were put up for elimination which resulted in the latter being sent home. From taking one look at his social media accounts and behind the scenes clips, it’s easy to see how grateful and humble Devin is. But, it seems that the “judges”, otherwise known as architects, would rather he be portrayed as a cocky teenager who believes that he is better than the other boys. After watching their feedback after his group’s performance, it’s clear that he is aware that he does not have the strongest vocals in the competition and simply hoped to improve and continue to learn. The show’s desire to change how viewers saw certain boys to the way that they want them to be seen is both ridiculous and damaging to their future careers.
Song Choices
It’s no secret that every song compliments certain voices better than others; Boy Band makes that painfully obvious. I’m not sure who is in charge of selecting the songs, but I’m almost convinced they pick them randomly from a hat. After watching performances such as this and this, it is clear that there are just some songs that do not work for boy bands. If the songs they are singing weren’t enough, fans have also expressed distaste in the heteronormativity within those songs as if it is completely bizarre that a guy uses the original pronouns from a song rather than make them all about a girl. This was specifically noticeable in the past episode where the theme was “Girl Power”. One group performed Fighter by Christina Aguilera, but the person in charge of the arrangement couldn’t seem to look past the single male pronoun (because God forbid a guy sing about anything other than a girl in 2017).
The Architects
Don’t worry, there was no way I was going to write an article about the flaws of Boy Band without briefly mentioning the mess that is the judging panel that consists of Emma Bunton, Timbaland and Nick Carter. Right off the bat, you will furrow your brows when you find out that they call themselves “architects”, but once you see what kind of feedback they give, it becomes very clear that they can’t judge for their lives. Without going too in depth, I will attempt to make this short and sweet by providing a fan-made video that captures just a handful of the reasons why the architects are the worst part of the show. (Seriously, ask anyone.)
Although I do dislike every aspect mentioned above, it is entertaining and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t grown to love some of the boys on the show. If Boy Band does somehow do a second season, hopefully, they will consider a new host and panel of judges who will genuinely want to help out young men looking to pursue a career in music.
