Design a boyband!


Steph: Four-piece in the style of Busted-meets-Avril Lavigne. Alistair Griffin (of Fame Academy - he should've won - a sad weekend) as lead singer and chief songwriter. Jimmy Anderson on bass, because as Mark Butcher said, "You've got to have the good-looking moody bass player in the background." Matt Baker on drums, as the lovable crazy Northern guy with a crooked nose. And Michael Vartan on guitar, because though he's too old to be in a boyband, he's still the most perfect-looking guy around. They shall be called The Boltzmann Distribution in a big nod to Dr Stevo Doherty, and they'll all wear black suits with black shirts, black shoes and dark glasses ALL THE TIME. Apart from Baker, who'll wear red basketball shoes because he's the lovable crazy Northern guy with a crooked nose. Spiky hair will be mandatory, apart from for Vartan, who will be permitted a quiff. Will be found at a Doublemeat Palace near you in five years' time.

Toby: The key to all boybands is the balance which means that everyone likes one of them, and they're all slightly different for slightly diffeent reasons. Disturbingly, it appears that Steph's boyband at least have the verisimilitude of all playing instruments. No such problem will exist with my selection. It's necessary to have five members of a boyband, to cover all angles. To whit:
Kelly Jones can sing, but unfortunately is placed in a band where the things which he has to sing are unpleasantly vacuous, have no artistic integrity, and quickly decay into the type of music which could be the cover of a classic or the theme music for a sitcom, (or both, simultaneously). So he can sing.
We need a cheeky little chap, who's a bit mouthy and says witty yet adorable things without ever being considered a major threat to anyone. Who better than Ronnie Corbett, who has already shown himself to have artistic connections by living with Alice Cooper, and who has already shown he can sing by doing all those duets in 'The Two Ronnies'? Admittedly, we'll have to work at the wit, but he'll get there.
Now we'll be needing the unnecessarily tall, strong, silent member of the group, who does nothing and says nothing of note. Who better than the elegant and psychotic Martin Johnson, who, fresh from beating Australia in the final of the Rugby World Cup, can glare, and try to swallow accusations that he's not happy with the band's disciplines, or the defence of the inside centre. Greenwood, you muppet.
Now we'll be needing the dancer. The person who bops around on videos in a vaguely superior way. If you're going to go for a dancer, there's no point going for half-measures, and ending up with that fat man from the top of the charts, so let's have Wayne Sleep. He's also exceedingly camp and will bring in the gay market.
Finally, we need someone who seems to be cool, for some reason. Admittedly, if you saw Ronnie Corbett, Wayne Sleep and Martin Johnson together, you'd be in for a pretty cool evening, but they just don't have the je ne sais quoi required of the cool member of the band. And for that, you'll need Christopher Lee. Possibly evil, possibly Dracula, an octogenrian, and yet unmistakably cool.
Average band age= 80+60+35+40+30/5= 49 approximately. And you can always rely on experience to see you through. I'll see you at the new Wembley stadium...

Back to main index