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Podcast: Slate History
Episode: Hit Parade: We Want It That Way Edition Part 2
Description: When you hear âboy band,â what do you picture? Five guys with precision dance moves? Songs crafted by the Top 40 pop machine? Svengalis pulling the puppet strings? Hordes of screaming girls?As it turns out, not all boy bands fit these signifiers. (WellâŚexcept for the screaming girlsâthey are perennial.) There are boy bands that danced, and some that did notâŚboy bands that relied entirely on outside songwriters, and those that wrote big hitsâŚboy bands assembled by managers or producers, and quite a few that launched on their own.Fr...