Boybands Forever

It's 1990. Poll tax rioters are setting the nation's capital ablaze, and prime minister Margaret Thatcher is being ousted by her own MPs. But a welcome distraction comes in the twinkly eyed form of a pop phenomenon which will define the decade: the boyband.

Taking a cue from the all-singing, all-dancing American pop act New Kids on the Block, the UK's Take That and East 17 would dance and shimmy their way through the British pop charts in the first half of the decade, clearing the way for a long conga line of other handsome, crooning hunks.

Tony Blair is heading for a landslide at his first general election, signalling the start of a new political era. For the nation's boybands, change is also in the air. With the implosion of pioneers Take That, their rivals East 17 see the way clear to clean up in the charts.

But after a notorious radio interview in which frontman Brian Harvey confesses to taking 12 ecstasy pills in one night, the band Five, capitalising on the new 'lad culture' of the time, are rapidly ctapulted into an unknown world of fame and idolatry.

It's the summer of 2001, and for several of Britain's biggest boybands, life in the limelight is coming to an end. Despite almost 20 million albums sold between them, East 17 and Take That have called time on their pop dreams. Five-piece Damage has hit a glass ceiling. Tweenager heartthrobs 911 have burned out, and bad boys Five are hanging by a thread.

Waiting in the wings are four-piece Blue and Irish balladeers Westlife, whose stars begin to rise just as those of their forebears fade. The bigger threat to the boy bands, however, is the new era of reality TV: Pop Idol, Popstars and The X Factor.