Techno and Boy Bands

Time of Popularity: Boy bands: 1997 (can you believe it?) - 2001, Techno: 1999-2001.
Ripped off the musical stylings of: Boy bands: earlier boy bands like New Kids on the Block and Menudo. Techno: every artist and filmmaker whose work was shamelessly sampled and repeated over a boring beat.
Trademark sound: Boy bands: nonthreatening harmonies and ballads, with the occasional choreographed dance move. Techno: I believe that Strong Bad says it better than I ever could.
Most Successful Artists: N*Sync, the Backstreet Boys, a gaggle of artists with the word "DJ" in their names somewhere.
Band with the most staying power: Justin Timberlake. Is any techno still popular? Moby I guess?
Clothing: Boy bands: nonthreatening, preppy outfits. Techno: glow sticks, pacifiers, and ridiculously huge pants reminiscent of M.C. Hammer so as to be large enough to store as many different designer club drugs as possible.
Long-term contribution to society: Well boy bands gave us Justin Timerlake who gave us last year's Super Bowl halftime controversy which gave us more stringent FCC regulations. So it is the boy bands' fault that all of television has a 5 second delay and anything more racy than The O'Reilly Factor is prefaced by eighteen warning labels and has to be shown late at night or on cable. Techno reversed decade-long trends of declining drug use by teens, as every spoiled rich kid in America purchased a fake ID and went off in search of an abandoned warehouse where some no-name with a turntable could play other people's songs and call himself a musician. The kids, in an effort to forget that the music was repetitive and horrible, would purchase ecstasy and suck on pacifiers while worshipping the one kid who spent 14 hours a day twirling a glow-stick around in front of a mirror at home because he had no job. Although there was the one positive contribution: CSI: Miami would never again be without a plot, as they could always fall back on "techno club owner kills dancer who may or may not have been smuggling drugs".
The Last Word: Like I said last time, if you were a teen in the late 90's your choice of popular music was between groups of five homoerotic boys with bleach-tipped hair dancing like puppets, snowboarders covered in tattoos with metal barbells through any loose skin on their bodies screaming incoherently, or DJ NoTalentHack mixing a bunch of other actual musicians' songs together over a spine-rattlingly repetitive kick drum. If you're just out of college right now and still deciding on a profession, you may want to choose "therapist". Someone will make millions off these kids.

Next Time: Emo