is what came up. This girl
has got it bad for Westlife.
Probably at least 75% of girls that grew up in the 1990s suffered from this illness. Some cases were far more severe than others (see picture on left). Some were chronic, others only lasted months to maybe a year or two. Often they came in clusters, and sufferers hung out in packs. Rarely was it fatal.
Lately I have been mocking the craze over Justin Bieber ("Bieber Fever"?), similiar to the Jonas brothers mania of the recent past. However, my sister likes to remind me that my boy band-itis was quite comparable if not worse than The Fever.
To start, I will say that I have been listening to boy bands since I was 5 or 6. I got my first 'N Sync CD(yes, CD, woo!) when I was 8. After that, it only got worse. I owned 3 live Backstreet Boys videos, an in-depth interview tape (circa 1998), and an 'N Sync Behind the Scenes video before I was 10.
I read many unauthorized biographies about Backstreet Boys and Hanson (once N Sync released their second album I stopped caring about them).
Posters of BSB, LFO, Hanson, and N Sync covered the walls of my room. I collected all five Backstreet Boys figurines from Burger King and had their comic book that they did with Stan Lee. I am pretty sure I also had 3 of the For the Fans CDs that were sold at Burger king.
The week Millenium was released my family was on a church camping weekend. My dad was coming late so I asked him to pick it up on his way. They had sold out of the CD version so I settled for the cassette. My best friend and I listened to that tape on my boombox the entire weekend. He and I knew all the songs by heart before we'd closed down the campers to go home two days later.
spelled wrong)
This is what I did with all of my posters, pinups and memorabilia when I took them off my walls and such:
unfamiliar. *Neither of these would be named
Nick or Aaron.
Dream Street was briefly a big deal and I loved them because they were closer to my age. Plus Jesse McCartney was so dreamy...
My younger cousins can attest to my long term infatuation because I smothered them with boy band music and that's the only way they'd ever heard of half of it. They still won't let me forget that I used the name Aaron (after Aaron Carter) for every Playmobil boy we played with for about a year.
I never got to be part of the girl mob at the concerts with signs and screams. My dad wouldn't let me go until I was older. However, when I was older, they stopped touring or releasing albums.
It should be pointed out that my best friend is as big a fan as me but more low key about it. At the show he got upset because Howie was singing Kevin's lines from the older songs, since Kevin left. He would point it out to us and my other friends could not understand how he knew. On the two hour drive back to the U.S. border we played BSB and called out all of Kevin's parts before he ever sang a note. We figured out which were the best songs featuring Kevin, and explained how easy it was to distinguish between each guy's vocals. Sure, it's sad but also a little awesome.
I've come to grips with the fact that my boy band-itis is incurable, severe, and I will suffer for life. Feel free to judge me if you like, but I promise I wasn't the only one.
I hope and pray that "Bieber Fever" only lasts until he hits the age of eighteen. I am not sure how much longer I can stand it. But alas, the boy band craze lasted more than a decade so we do have that to look forward to...
Did you suffer from boy band-itis or a similar disease? Even better, are you going to see Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block on tour this summer? Tell us your stories!
-Brianna