anyway, my main take on sex pistols: boy band or no? is that you have to come up with a consistent set of criteria that a group meets to be considered a boy band, and the pistols were so inconsistent that it’s impossible to see how you could apply it to the without applying it to basically everyone
the long and short of this is that “boy band” is inaccurate unless you’re classifying most bands before the mid-80s as boy bands or girls groups, and that malcolm mclaren, vivienne westwood and each individual member of the pistols all had entirely different motivations for being involved
fwiw, my criteria is:
1. plays music written by producers/managers/label
2. public/personal life largely controlled by label (this one is subjective, i know, but important)
3. are part of a marketing strategy to sell items other than music
the pistols only meet 1/3 here
my general feel (while admittedly not knowing a ton about the ROK music industry) is that what i have read sounds a lot like the industry here in the 50s and 60s in particular
I think this. Not having mass media in the 50s my opinion might be skewed. But suicide and eating disorders seem to be a bad by product of said pressures on the k-pop performers. But also could be a by product of a higher suicide rate for South Korea in general. Yikes. Didnt mean to go dark.
It’s ok imo. Pop idoldom has a lot of darkness and downsides, especially for artists/performers! (Part of why I’m kinda curious to look at it through a labor lens haha)
