The two biggest were Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, which both personified a shiny, friendly, not especially aggressive masculinity that made them seem approachable to their young female audience. The late 1990s and early 2000s were a heyday for boy bands - and also, of course, a backlash against them. Add to that these groups’ pop leanings - and the fact that they often work with established hitmakers and focus more on singing and dancing rather than composing their own tunes - and it’s probably no wonder why many listeners dismiss them as being prepackaged stars without a whiff of artistic integrity. That’s a gross generalization, of course, but whether it was the adorable Beatles in their moptops singing to legions of screaming, fainting female fans or New Kids on the Block or One Direction or BTS showing off their creamy good looks, boy bands tend to emphasize their inoffensive boyishness. Is the song cheering the characters on, or is Baker mocking their dreams with a piece of bygone bubblegum pop?īoy bands have long had to deal with a section of the public that hates them because, well, they largely appeal to girls.
They’re mostly an unhappy lot, longing to escape their circumstance, while “Bye Bye Bye’s” energetic breakup energy is both overly caffeinated and brazenly defiant. “Bye Bye Bye” serves as a sort of ironic counterpoint to the desperate lives of the individuals we meet in that film. I saw Red Rocket at Cannes back in the summer, and all these months later, I’ll suddenly have “Bye Bye Bye” in my head and think of Mikey’s dirtbag misadventures. The song is also featured in the trailer, its hammered-into-your-skull hook impossible to dislodge from your brain once you’ve heard it. (One of the characters Mikey encounters will even do her own version of the song.) “ an anthem for the film,” Red Rocket director Sean Baker explained recently, later adding, “The price on that track wasn’t part of our initial budget. “Bye Bye Bye” actually shows up several times in Red Rocket, and in several forms.
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