In a bid to seem more artistically legit, Aussie act 5 Seconds of Summer maintain they’re a rock band, not a boy band, though many media outlets think the punk-lite brochachos doth protest too much. “We’re just a boy band,” Ameer Vann, one of the group’s songwriters and rappers, told the Yellow Wall in January. Historically, of course, there have been pretty strict limits set on who's anointed as a pop star and who gets to be in a boy band. So when One Direction burst onto the scene well after this golden era of boy bands, they not only proved the timelessness of boy bands but also unknowingly tested the waters for their evolution. “I'd rather tell somebody that I'm in a boy band and prove to them that we're dope, versus telling them I'm in a boy group and try to hide the weird stigma,” says Edwin.

Source: The Irish Daily Star May 23, 2018 15:00 UTC