Until this week, BTS, the seven-member group that emerged from Seoul nearly a decade ago and has gone on to become one of the best-selling acts on the planet, seemed to answer a question that had never before been properly considered: What would happen if a boy band stayed together indefinitely? NSYNC’s run, the apex of the model’s turn-of-the-century American boom, lasted four years; One Direction, the product of a British talent show, debuted more than ten years later but dissolved along a similar timeline. New Kids on the Block had No. 1 albums in 1988 and 1990, but by 1994 couldn’t crack the top 35. The Backstreet Boys made a big deal of returning from a half-decade hiatus with goatees and acoustic guitars, but they, too, spent about four years as teen idols before slipping into a purgatory of Oprah segments and reunion tours.
These things have a short half-life — which has suited them fine, because the disposability is built in. Members of massive groups grow restless and expensive for their labels to retain; they want to co-write, they want to branch out, they want to wear leather jackets and date other celebrities in public. They want to go solo. A publicity machine (which increasingly includes American critics) is quick to project depth and sophistication onto these ex-members when they do. But there are only so many Timberlakes and Styles. For most, their catalog is destined to be read as forever in conversation with the cocoon they left behind.
