Tag Archives: 90’s Boyband

The Rise and Fall of East 17 – What Went Wrong?

Twenty years ago, the music world’s perception of boy bands include good-looking young boys who can sing, dance and make young girls (and gays) fall for them. Take That’s marketing strategy worked. Gary, Howard, Jason, Mark and Robbie are the types of guys your mom would want you to marry. The good boy image they project meant they need to follow some very strict rules like no partying in public, do not comment on political or social issues and no girlfriends.

East 17 - The Original 'Bad Boys' of British Pop.. hip-hop and RnB

East 17 – The Original ‘Bad Boys’ of British Pop.. hip-hop and RnB

East 17 did the opposite. Actually, I was surprised when I found out that East 17 were the ‘rival’ group of Take That. While Gary Barlow and the boys loved to sing ballads and revival hits, East 17 were original in the sense that Tony Mortimer wrote majority of their songs (all originals… am I right?), they’re not afraid to speak their mind and they’re sincerely project the ‘i-don’t-care-I-will-live-my-life-just-deal-with-it’ type of image.

People close to my age here in the Philippines might remember East 17 when they became E-17 on the late 90’s for the song ‘Each Time’ (included in the Now 5 compilation album). As a fan of MTV Asia Classic (every weekdays 11-11:30am), I’ve seen the music videos of the boys for House of Love, Deep and Stay Another Day.

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