Boy Band - General Discussion

[EyewatchTV211]

26 minutes ago, Nessie said:

Thanks @soamused.  That gasp you might have heard was me when you said Brady was on Fresh off the Boat.  As a loyal viewer of that show, I'm surprised I didn't recognize him, which sent me to IMDB.  Yep, he was one of Eddie's friends in season 2, and once I found a pic, I remembered him.  That makes me feel better about him being in the band, knowing he has experience in showbiz.

And you are correct that it is an unfortunate fact that talent needed is in inverse proportion to attractiveness, for both males and females.

You are me! I also saw the show and never made the connection. And I'm usually excellent at recognizing faces - and either figuring out where else I have seen them or googling if necessary. His face didn't set off my usual alarm for some reason. Interesting.

[waving feather]

I like the serious business look on the boys lol. Drew looks so GQ. With that jawline, he should consider modelling. And thankfully Sergio is wearing full-length pants.

[yorklee2]

On 8/26/2017 at 1:29 PM, soamused said:

The final 5 are essentially the Despacito group with Brady swapped in for Mikey.  There are the t(w)eens voting every week they could, and then the more casual fans who stepped in to vote only at the end.  I would argue that of all the performances, Despacito left the strongest lasting impression for casual voters, and may have set some preferences early on.  I thought Marcus would make it in - I didn't expect that 3 Latino/Hispanic boys would - but maybe Despacito made enough of a difference.

I agree that the show did all it could to cast a diverse (except for Asian!) cast, and to promote both Marcus and Jaden.  

I remember seeing the performance of Despacito when it aired but I didn't specifically remember each individual boy. I do remember it being a good performance so maybe it subconsciously stuck in my memory. But it's ironic that of the final 5 almost all were in the Despacito performance. I didn't vote for Chance because I assumed he was a sure thing and I wanted my votes to go for the ones I thought needed it more. Brady was one of my picks so no I would not have replaced him with Mikey. So the only vote I lost was Jaden. I really thought he should have been in the band but as others have said he'll probably do better on his own. Also I voted for the ones I honestly thought gave the best finale performances. So I voted for Drew, Brady, Sergio, and Jaden. I liked Marcus but honestly his last performance wasn't as good as some of his others. Anyways I like the end result. Especially since I saw how at the band's first performance together that Michael C really does bring a lot to the band.

ETA: I was one of the casual fans who only voted at the end. I'm really too old for this but I thought, why the heck not.

Edited August 28, 2017 by yorklee2

[Lyinfait]

9 hours ago, soamused said:

I'm not worried about Brady.  Apparently he comes from a show biz family - both of his older siblings are actors, and he is as well, having appeared in several TV shows, had a recurring role in an ABC show called Fresh Off the Boat, and he has a movie coming out next year.

As soon as I read it, I knew immediately who he was on the show! Add me to the group who did not make the connection. Wow. Thank you for the information.

 

9 hours ago, Nessie said:

Ok, I've now had a chance to watch the rather underwhelming (for me) finale.  Who is this Sophia Carson chick?  Is she a thing?  She needs to learn to open her mouth when she sings, because I couldn't understand a word.  The other guy was a little better, but not much.  I guess that's the style these days.  

 

 And I still think Devin would have made it if he hadn't exploded in a shower of arrogant glitter.

I can't understand them either. I definitely think it's the new style. 

Your description of Devin is perhaps the most awesome (and accurate) thing I've read today! He really did. 

[Guest]

Fun show.  I'm happy with the final 5.  I think Jaden deserved it but hopefully he'll do well without it.  

I wish they hadn't made the single such a knock-off of the first 1D hit.  I think music consumers are savvy enough to feel manipulated.   It's not a bad song but I think they had the opportunity to come out of the gate with something fresh but they took the safe, dull route.   I think that takes a lot of the coolness out of the band.   Hopefully they have fresher material in the wings for them, or plan to find it.

[waving feather]

In Real Life is a better name than PrettyMuch. So I like the name but I'm concerned about the (lack of) vocal talent of the band. Saw a fan video of them performing their song at City Walk and aside from Drew (who sounded like the record), the rest were really rough vocally. Even Brady, who I thought was good on the show, just didn't fit this song. It's a contrast when I go back and listen to other boy bands that I like, such as The Wanted. Nearly every member of that group is very strong vocally. I don't follow 1D closely, so how are their vocals compared to that of IRL?

[wonald]

5 minutes ago, waving feather said:

In Real Life is a better name than PrettyMuch. So I like the name but I'm concerned about the (lack of) vocal talent of the band. Saw a fan video of them performing their song at City Walk and aside from Drew (who sounded like the record), the rest were really rough vocally. Even Brady, who I thought was good on the show, just didn't fit this song. It's a contrast when I go back and listen to other boy bands that I like, such as The Wanted. Nearly every member of that group is very strong vocally. I don't follow 1D closely, so how are their vocals compared to that of IRL?

 

I followed X-Factor the season that 1D was created. They sounded like butt in the lives all the way thru to the end, just like IRL. It's the cuteness factor that is most important. I thought 1D should have won that season. Knew they were going to be big.

[alrightokay]

There's hope for IRL vocally, because 1D started out sounding terrible (back then, only Liam could really sing).  They got vocal training, toured a ton, and got so much better, so that now three of them are excellent singers (Liam, Zayn, and Harry), Niall is good, and Louis is okay.  Amazingly, all five of them now have solo top 40 hits.  What really made 1D work, though, was their chemistry; they had distinct personalities that bounced off each other well.  They were so much fun in interviews and behind-the-scenes videos (though I know a lot of that might have been manufactured).  In recent years, it became clear they were splintering and hated being stuck together, but early on, they were a delight.  It's not that IRL needs to copy 1D; as Winston9-DT3 said above, "Eyes Closed" already sounds too similar to "What Makes You Beautiful," and that might turn some potential fans off.  But IRL definitely needs more vocal and media training (hopefully Disney/Hollywood are already working on this), and they need to show more personality.  They're all really adept at social media, and they'll probably take advantage of that to help show different sides of themselves.  During the run of Boy Band, I watched some of the boys' individual Instagram Lives, and it was fun to see the quirks that couldn't come through on the TV show.  For instance, Drew seemed pretty soft-spoken and earnest on the show, but his Lives, especially those with Jaden and Marcus, revealed his random sense of humor and wacky dancing (I love the guy, he's always been my favorite, but he's a hilarious dancer--if the timestamp doesn't work, go to 22:00).  As IRL gets more comfortable and confident as a band, hopefully they'll be able to show how much fun they can be.

4 hours ago, waving feather said:

Even Brady, who I thought was good on the show, just didn't fit this song.

I wonder if the way the song is arranged makes Brady's part really hard to sing, because it's surprising how much he's struggling with how he has to sing "finger" and "think of" here.  He's also being forced to sing in a belt-y "pop" voice when he's trained more as a choral singer (when he changed up how he sang "think of" in the band's recent Live, it sounded lovely--I hope he keeps doing that). 

Edited August 28, 2017 by alrightokay

[soamused]

IRL is getting almost no media exposure.  Their VEVO youtube channel shows <9K views of the finale performance and ~73K listens of their single, and the Boy Band youtube channel shows ~126K views of the finale performance.  The song did well on itunes for one day and then dropped like a brick.  It's going to take some real work to get people other than the hard core fans from the show interested in IRL.

I'm really curious how much Hollywood will invest in this band.  I heard in an interview that they will be filming the video Thursday.  My kid and her friends have been streaming the song on Spotify - maybe it's doing better there than on youtube/itunes.  I know it's early days, but it doesn't bode well that there was so little press interest after the finale.

[alrightokay]

The poor guys had the bad luck of releasing their single the same weekend that Taylor Swift dropped her latest song and video....

[truthaboutluv]

4 hours ago, alrightokay said:

The poor guys had the bad luck of releasing their single the same weekend that Taylor Swift dropped her latest song and video....

Well and also not a single one of them is boy band hot. Admittedly I didn't really watch this show. It was always just playing on mute in the background while I did other things. But I watched the finale when they announced the final members of the group and every guy they called was more unattractive than the other. For boy bands to work, you need at least one person that is conceivably a solo star - your Justin Timberlake, your Harry Styles, etc. And for both of those groups, there were other guys like J.C. and Zayn, etc. I don't see that with any of these guys. They all look old to me, their looks are all slightly off and they just don't scream star appeal to me. What were the ratings of the show like anyway? Because if it wasn't that great, then that's also not going to help them moving forward. 

[alrightokay]

You can barely hear the question and answers, but IRL got interviewed last night at the VMAs.

[alrightokay]

10 hours ago, truthaboutluv said:

Well and also not a single one of them is boy band hot....  They all look old to me, their looks are all slightly off and they just don't scream star appeal to me. What were the ratings of the show like anyway? Because if it wasn't that great, then that's also not going to help them moving forward. 

I think the guys in IRL are at least cute, if not "hot."  It's weird, but I think it takes time and familiarity for boy band members to become "hot."  When BSB and *NSYNC first started out, I didn't find any of them attractive (not even Justin); didn't they all have funny hair back then :)?  It wasn't until I started liking their songs and appreciating their harmonizing and dancing in their videos that some of them became "hot" to me.  Some people just look better when they're doing something they're really good at.  Boy Band viewers (and admittedly there aren't that many of us--the ratings were really bad) got to see the contestants share their talents over ten weeks, and maybe that familiarity/bonding made the guys seem more attractive to us than to casual/drop-in watchers.  

Edited August 29, 2017 by alrightokay

[thehepburn]

IRL is cute enough; way cuter than O-town for instance in terms of RTV made products. And yeah, if you watch NSYNC's first version of "I Want You Back" music video (the one in the cheap looking space station), there was some pretty bad hair back then including JC trying to rock the Caesar cut. Just no, JC.

This came across my YT feed and it's hilarious: Chance on AGT. Oh Simon!  

[soamused]

My teen thinks Chance is hot.  Does not hurt that they showed him shirtless multiple times on the show.  Her friends think Brady is cute.  The kid and I don't feel it - he's got some weird facial features to us.  We also thought Drew's face was a bit too angular to be cute - but since his voice is really making the single, he's growing on us.

Learned yesterday that the final 5 were each paid $75K by the show - not bad for a summer job.  I wonder what sort of contract they got from Hollywood.

[waving feather]

18 hours ago, alrightokay said:

For instance, Drew seemed pretty soft-spoken and earnest on the show, but his Lives, especially those with Jaden and Marcus, revealed his random sense of humor and wacky dancing (I love the guy, he's always been my favorite, but he's a hilarious dancer--if the timestamp doesn't work, go to 22:00).

I saw that and it's actually one of my favorite Instagram lives ever. It's just a good mix of craziness, humor and singing/dancing and Drew/Jaden/Marcus had such good chemistry as friends. Too bad they won't be in the band together. I was dying when Drew and Jaden were fighting over the speaker while Marcus was doing interpretative dancing in the background. Marcus is such a sweet and funny boy.

9 hours ago, truthaboutluv said:

They all look old to me, their looks are all slightly off and they just don't scream star appeal to me.

LMAO, so sad for them because the oldest two are only 19 and the rest are 15 or 16. To me, they look very young, so none of them have the cool/bad boy appeal. But that's not really their lane anyway, so it's alright. They are cute, non-threatening type like the Jonas Brothers. They also remind me of BSB when they started out. I think their success or lack thereof will really depend on the music they release in the future. I like Eyes Closed but I am not sure it is unique enough to put them on the map.

With regards to showing more personality, that is all marketing. If they have good PR team behind them, they can do all sorts of things to show off their personalities in the media. And they do have interesting personality, like noted above.

45 minutes ago, thehepburn said:

This came across my YT feed and it's hilarious: Chance on AGT. Oh Simon!  

OMG, this is hilarious. Poor Chance, but I agree with Simon. That was horrible.

[truthaboutluv]

9 hours ago, alrightokay said:

 (and admittedly there aren't that many of us--the ratings were really bad)

Thanks. I wondered about the ratings because I do think that would have helped them immensely if the ratings were good because they would be starting with a decent sized number of viewers who were already fans. Kind of like One Direction and how huge X-Factor is Britain. And for the record, I'm sure the guys are all lovely. But speaking as a casual observer, it didn't bode well in my opinion that when watching the finale, not a single one of them made me go, "hmm". Yes, all these boy bands in the past looked a hot mess at times, especially before they truly broke out, (also for some it was just the bad fashion of the decade) but I feel like you were still able to have one or two stand out. I just didn't see that with any of these guys. But hey, 5th Harmony looked a hot mess to me during X-Factor and I still think they look a hot mess, with choreography that is never in sync and they've build a solid career for themselves. 

[alrightokay]

47 minutes ago, waving feather said:

Drew/Jaden/Marcus had such good chemistry as friends. Too bad they won't be in the band together. I was dying when Drew and Jaden were fighting over the speaker while Marcus was doing interpretative dancing in the background. Marcus is such a sweet and funny boy.

I loved that part, too!  The three of them have a spark together, and that liveliness is what I feel is missing so far from IRL, even though they're all sweet and eager to please.  Marcus is also smooth and engaging in interviews--he's a great storyteller--and that would have helped during the group's early, somewhat awkward media appearances.  (Sigh, I'm still sad about Marcus.)  I'm sure IRL will get better chemistry-wise over time, but as soamused said above, there's so little publicity for these guys right now that they might not have much time left to make an impression on a larger audience.

21 minutes ago, truthaboutluv said:

But hey, 5th Harmony looked a hot mess to me during X-Factor and I still think they look a hot mess, with choreography that is never in sync and they've build a solid career for themselves. 

LOL, so true!  What is it about Simon and his girl groups; their styling is always so jarring.  I love Little Mix's singing and dancing, but their "look," except for in the "Move" video, has been all over the place.

[soamused]

Eyes Closed is currently #149 on the overall singles chart (via LivePopBars).  Not seeing it on any Billboard charts yet.

[alrightokay]

Afterbuzz TV asked really good questions here; the guys got to go into more depth than usual, and they come across as genuinely nice, humble, and lovable.

[soamused]

10 minutes ago, alrightokay said:

Afterbuzz TV asked really good questions here; the guys got to go into more depth than usual, and they come across as genuinely nice, humble, and lovable.

Thanks for the heads up!  So they spent the day recording their Christmas song, which is a poppy original.  They're shooting their video Wednesday, outside.

[Guest]

I tried to listen to them on that City Walk video but is it someone's phone recording?  It sounds so bad, and then all the screaming.  And I'm distracted by whatever strings are hanging off Michael Conor.  I'm not sure if he's escaping a straight jacket or has some drawstring unders or what.  I'm sure it's some style.  

[alrightokay]

I've joked about this before, but Chance really could run for office one day.

[alrightokay]

Interview with Zach Sang.  More good questions! 

[alrightokay]

Gotta say, Michael Conor was the best here: Truth or Dare with IRL.

[soamused]

That was cute, thanks for the link!

[waving feather]

3 hours ago, alrightokay said:

Gotta say, Michael Conor was the best here: Truth or Dare with IRL.

So cute. I think they are getting better with media. They are still a little reserved but I think give them some time and they can be themselves more.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, alrightokay said:

Gotta say, Michael Conor was the best here: Truth or Dare with IRL.

Ha!  Agreed.  I wonder if the cut was because someone had to show him what that dance move was.  

Chance was pretty funny, too, imitating Timbaland's and Emma's goofy, teary comments.  

The matching 'white jeans with knee rips' isn't very cool.   Who's styling them?  

Brady pings my gaydar.  Not that a gay member ever hurts a boy band.  

[alrightokay]

So. Many. Boy. Bands.  And looking at all these pics, I stand by my theory that boy bands aren't hot until you see them in motion.  (The comments at the bottom of the page are pretty funny and unfortunately prove that no one knows who IRL or any of the other new boy bands are, at least for now.)

5 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

Not that a gay member ever hurts a boy band.  

On a related note, something I've noticed in recent years that I didn't see with the 90's bands, is that whether or not any of a boy band's members are gay, a lot of teens/tweens enjoy "shipping" them with each other.  Maybe this comes from kids just being more comfortable these days with gender- and sexual fluidity.  A lot of times, the shipping is just harmless fun, but in some cases, it can turn into an obsession where fan-demands negatively affect the group dynamics (see Louis/Harry/"Larry" in 1D).  I hope the shipping doesn't get too intense for IRL, because so far I love their sweet, supportive, happy-go-lucky dynamic.  

The boys are getting some time off to be with their families.  Good for them!

Edited September 1, 2017 by alrightokay

[waving feather]

I know all of the "then" boy bands but have no freaking clue who any of the "now" boy bands are except for IRL. And that is only because I watch this show.

[EyewatchTV211]

Aw, they didn't include my backup boyband from back in the day. BSB was my #1, but I allowed myself to enjoy BBMak. Does anyone remember them? 

Did anyone see BSB on CMT Crossroads with Florida Georgia Line? I enjoyed it. It was nice to see some other BSB performances besides "Everybody," since they've been doing the latter everywhere lately as part of their comeback.

[alrightokay]

1 hour ago, VMepicgrl said:

Aw, they didn't include my backup boyband from back in the day. BSB was my #1, but I allowed myself to enjoy BBMak. Does anyone remember them? 

I remember them!  "Back Here" was a great song!

This is the only visual teaser IRL have given for their music video so far.  Sheesh, my eyes might as well be closed; can't see a thing except that Drew's hair is down.

[waving feather]

10 hours ago, VMepicgrl said:

Aw, they didn't include my backup boyband from back in the day. BSB was my #1, but I allowed myself to enjoy BBMak. Does anyone remember them? 

Of course! Their song "The Ghost Of You And Me" is still one of my favorites.

[alrightokay]

Aww, it was a bad summer (scroll down to see what they say about this show), but for lots of other reasons (world/political events).  Boy Band, as "dumb" as it could be at times, was a fun escape for me, and I'm glad it was on.

BTW, the writer of that article is Dave Holmes, who used to be a VJ on MTV; he was a finalist on "Wanna Be a VJ?" and then hosted a bunch of shows on that channel during the 90's boy bands' heyday.  Maybe he appreciates BSB and NSYNC too much to like IRL.  :)

Edited September 2, 2017 by alrightokay

[EyewatchTV211]

10 hours ago, waving feather said:

Of course! Their song "The Ghost Of You And Me" is still one of my favorites.

Mine, too! I still use an iPod to play in my car, particularly on long rides. I'll sometimes skip other songs that I'm not in the mood for, but I always play that one. Love it. I was sad they didn't last long.

[alrightokay]

On September 1, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Winston9-DT3 said:

The matching 'white jeans with knee rips' isn't very cool.   Who's styling them?  

Coincidentally, this article just came out about boy band style over the decades, and it includes interviews with both BSB's stylist and IRL's stylist (here's her Instagram, where she details the labels for the outfits she put together for the boys during the show). 

Edited September 3, 2017 by alrightokay

[alrightokay]

Interview with Shine On Media.  It'll be interesting to see/hear how they incorporate Michael Conor's violin-playing into the band's album and performances.  That'll make them stand out from all the other boy bands, right?  :)

Edited September 5, 2017 by alrightokay

[alrightokay]

The boys' fears/hated foods.  I'm with you, Drew; I don't like onions either (they give him such a hard time about it)!  LOL, Brady goes on to lecture on the difference between "caramel" and "care-amel."  

Edited September 5, 2017 by alrightokay

[soamused]

Eyes Closed is #1086 in itunes singles.  It was apparently #1 on Disney radio last week - for whatever that's worth.  The music video had better go live soon, and there needs to be some serious promotion, for this song to be noticed.

[alrightokay]

IRL is slowly unveiling "Get to Know..." videos about each of the boys.  First up is Brady.  I'll add more links to this post as the videos get uploaded.

Chance.

Drew.

Sergio.

Michael Conor.

Edited September 11, 2017 by alrightokay

[soamused]

Thanks for the link!

I don't understand why it's taken them so long to post this - the video is only a little longer than 1 minute, and mostly clips from the show.  They should have had 8 videos for all the finalists ready to go before the last episode, and then released the 5 for the final band members as soon as the show ended and the song was released.  There was a *small* bit of media interest right after the finale, and one day of strong sales for the single on itunes - they should have fed that initial interest with information on the band's official youtube, twitter, instagram, etc.   They should also have scheduled a video shoot for the day after the finale and gotten it up as soon as possible - it looks like it's only a performance video anyway, so should have been relatively inexpensive and a quick edit to produce if they had planned properly.

The single has only 161K views on the band's VEVO youtube and their performance clip has a combined view count of <250K from both the show's and the band's youtube accounts, which is less than for the more popular performances on the show.  The boys are still at home this week, so they're not doing any promos.  It doesn't look like Hollywood is pushing hard for anything.  I wonder what sort of contract the band has - are they committed to an EP at least, or is it just this single and a Christmas song?  The single is streaming on the usual sites such as spotify but I don't see it on any Billboard charts so the numbers must be low, and it's quite low on the itunes sales charts.  

I know Hollywood is their recording company, but who is managing them?  I think the band has potential, but this seems to be a very slow start and I wonder if there's going to be a big investment made to get things going.  

Eta:  just checked - Eyes Closed is no longer listed in the top 1500 singles chart.  

The band's twitter claims >650K streams on spotify, but the song is not listed on spotify's daily or weekly top 200 charts.  The #200 song on spotify's weekly chart has >1.2 million streams for the week, and on the daily chart the #200 song has ~170K streams for the day.  So ... 650K streams over the course of 2 weeks is an average of ~46K streams/day and not making much of a splash in spotify's world.  I'm guessing it's much lower than 46K streams a day right now since there were probably a lot of streams the first few days and then some tapering off, just like the sales.

Edited September 7, 2017 by soamused

[alrightokay]

6 hours ago, soamused said:

I don't understand why it's taken them so long to post this - the video is only a little longer than 1 minute, and mostly clips from the show.  They should have had 8 videos for all the finalists ready to go before the last episode, and then released the 5 for the final band members as soon as the show ended and the song was released.  

Yeah, the publicity has dwindled down to a (sloooow) trickle.  And the only outlets that have interviewed IRL so far are relatively minor ones on youtube; I'm surprised they haven't done more interviews on ABC's morning/late night shows or even short promo spots on Disney Channel.  IRL's youtube channel still only has Brady's video up; the others' are there but are still set to "private."  I'm not sure why they're waiting to release these.  Maybe they think it'll create suspense/anticipation to slowly add each vid?  I agree with you that things aren't looking so good PR-wise, but hopefully they'll do another round of promo once the "Eyes Closed" video drops....

[EyewatchTV211]

Not surprised they aren't anywhere on the Billboard charts considering I haven't heard them on any radio stations. I don't know if payola is still a thing, and I don't know what legally needs to be done to get radio stations to start playing their songs. I think that's an important way to get exposure - hearing the actual music and getting out there to people who might not just tune in to the television media shows to see some unfamiliar group of boys. The only boyband I have heard on the radio in recent years is One Direction. I haven't heard Simon Cowell's group either (besides "Radio" Disney which apparently is barely radio anymore). And I know I read in an interview from at least one of the BSB what I had already suspected, that they were definitely being kept off of radio play even when they were putting out new music. Yet Britney puts out any new music and they jump to play her (at least initially - her last single wasn't very good and didn't last long). 

Edited September 8, 2017 by VMepicgrl

[alrightokay]

Now Chance's video is up.

[soamused]

Billboard now tracks sales, airplay, and streaming - and the single isn't showing up for any of that.  There's probably all sorts of barely legal payola-ish things a record company does to push a single for airplay, and it doesn't seem to me they're doing much of it right now if the boys are still hanging out at home instead of traveling around schmoozing with radio people and trying to increase their exposure. 

Oh, and I've heard the song enough now that Brady's section is starting to bother me.  I mean, who under the age of 70 would say "God help me"?  What genius thought that repeating that twice in a pop song would sound even remotely natural to anyone too young to claim social security?  Lyrics like that don't belong in a pop song, at least not this decade.  I cringe a bit whenever I hear Brady's verse.  And while we're at it, the "holy smokes" and "she's the homie" in the rap section sound like a middle aged lyricist trying to sound hip to 12-year-olds and failing.

The rest of the song is still a bop though.  I hope the video comes out soon and does something.  I don't think these ~1 minute youtubes "introducing" each band member using clips from the show, slowly being revealed one at a time, are going to do much.

Edited September 8, 2017 by soamused

[alrightokay]

24 minutes ago, soamused said:

Oh, and I've heard the song enough now that Brady's section is starting to bother me.  I mean, who under the age of 70 would say "God help me"?  What genius thought that repeating that twice in a pop song would sound even remotely natural to anyone too young to claim social security?  Lyrics like that don't belong in a pop song, at least not this decade.  I cringe a bit whenever I hear Brady's verse.  And while we're at it, the "holy smokes" and "she's the homie" in the rap section sound like a middle aged lyricist trying to sound hip to 12-year-olds and failing.

LOL, the lyrics are pretty clunky.  "I want you illuminated"?  "We just crashing on these dummies"?  You're right, though, that Brady has the worst/hardest part.  It's a shame, because he's one of the strongest singers in the group.  Early in the show, when he was singing mostly ballads, he was a standout for me because he had such impressive control over his voice; but the awkward phrasing/arrangement in "Eyes Closed" makes him sound like he's losing that control.  During his verse, it's as if he's barely holding on and is constantly in danger of veering off-pitch, if that makes sense.

On a separate note, any Harry Potter fans here?  Brady recently did a live, with Michael chiming in from the comment section, and they revealed which Hogwarts houses the boys would be in (it's something they've actually talked about together):

Brady: Ravenclaw (yeah, I can see that)

Chance: Gryffindor (yep)

Sergio: Hufflepuff (totally)

Michael: Slytherin (no question)

Drew: Slytherin (REALLY??  Maybe his shy, spacey goofball persona is all an act....)

[alrightokay]

Interview with ClevverTV.  Not much new here, but Brady is hilarious during the boy band trivia quiz.

ETA: It's Drew.

Since they're releasing one video a day, we'll get the final "Get to Know" vid on Sunday--does that mean the "Eyes Closed" video will drop Monday?  Hope so!

ETA2: Three of the boys are doing meet and greets this weekend--Drew on Sat. in NYC, Michael on Sat. in Cleveland, and Chance on Sun. in Seal Beach.  Sergio had his meet and greet last weekend; Brady doesn't seem to be doing one.  Chance's announcement for his m&g is so him; he's tying it to a fundraiser for hurricane relief (which is really cool).

Edited September 9, 2017 by alrightokay

[waving feather]

I dislike Brady's part of the song, both the recorded and live version and I usually skip over it because it is so jarring to my ears. "Fingers" & "think of" in particular are so hard to hear. Perhaps Brady can get tips from Chance to sing his part, since they are basically singing the same part. "God help me" is not a good lyric but I have heard Chance and Drew sing those words more convincing in the song. Brady just sings it too bluntly without nuance. It is especially unfortunate because he is the 2nd best singer in the band. Nick Carter received a lot of hate during the show for criticizing Brady for his lack of versatility but I thought he raised a good concern. Drew's parts, OTOH, are still like honey to my ears.

On 9/8/2017 at 2:55 PM, alrightokay said:

Brady: Ravenclaw (yeah, I can see that)

Chance: Gryffindor (yep)

Sergio: Hufflepuff (totally)

Michael: Slytherin (no question)

Drew: Slytherin (REALLY??  Maybe his shy, spacey goofball persona is all an act....)

Brady is a cross between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor to me. Drew as a Slytherin... Hm. He just got more interesting to me. He's definitely not Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, though.

[alrightokay]

Meet Sergio!

[alrightokay]

A really interesting "what if"--five of the guys (Chance, Andrew Bloom, Devin, Drew, and Michael Conor) got to do "That's What I Like" with Adam Blackstone at a club (not sure when this happened, but the video was uploaded August 8--was this just for fun or were the producers "testing" them?  Or maybe only the oldest contestants could participate).  Devin (off-camera most of the time) sounds awful here.  Chance breaks out the sexy dance moves.  Andrew Bloom is really good, and it's too bad he didn't last longer in the competition.

ETA: I missed that the video description showed this show took place on July 28.

Edited September 11, 2017 by alrightokay