Although the term “boy band” did not exist until the 1990s, Boston group New Edition is credited for starting the boy band trend in the 1980s. Maurice Starr was influenced by New Edition and popularised it with his protégé New Kids on the Block, the first commercially successful modern boy band who formed in 1984 and found international success in 1988. Starr’s idea was to take the traditional template from the R&B genre (in this case his teenage band New Edition) and apply it to a pop genre.
Some managers in Europe soon created their own acts after being inspired by New Kids on the Block. First beginning with Nigel Martin-Smith’s Take That in the UK who formed in 1990 and followed by Tom Watkins who had success with Bros in the late eighties and formed East 17 in 1991 who were marketed and pited against Take That as rivals with a harsher attitude, style and sound. Irish music manager Louis Walsh had seen the impact of these two British boy bands and put out an advert for an ‘Irish Take That’ creating Boyzone in 1993.
Starr, originally from Florida, moved to Boston with his brother Michael in the early 1970s. After moving to Boston he recorded two unsuccessful R&B albums, Flaming Starr and Spacey Lady. Since he was unsuccessful as an artist, he decided to create a band to perform the songs that he wrote. Starr won Songwriter of the Year in 1989.
In 1982, Starr found the band New Edition on his talent show. The group produced a number of U.S. Top 10 R&B hit singles and a Top 5 hit in the Billboard Hot 100. Differences between Starr and New Edition caused the two to go their separate ways. Eventually the band split up. One of the members, Bobby Brown, went on to have a successful career as a solo act. […]
After losing New Edition, Starr needed a new band to record his songs. In 1984, he created New Kids on the Block, a band consisting of five male teenagers. Starr produced New Kids on the Block to be a white version of New Edition as he stated I honestly believe that if they’d been white, (the group) would have been 20 times as big.
New Edition: Cool it down (1984)
