BRIDGET'S GUIDE TO BOY BANDS

BELL BIV DEVOE

Harry Styles album is really good. Niall Horan's doing singer-songwriter stuff. Zayn's in the alt-r&b arena. Liam Payne's trying to be an identikit 2017 pop star and the jury's out on what Louis Tomlinson's up to. As of this point, One Direction have spawned more successful solo careers than the majority of boy bands in hiatus. But they're not the most successful group to see their members break out into solo stardom. That honor goes to New Edition. Bad boy Bobby Brown stormed out of the Boston combo and went on to a sensational run of hits and acclaim followed by an even more sensational run as a tabloid fixture. Brown's replacement, Johnny Gill, already a much-loved r&b singer, found his profile and his fanbase rejuvenated after his brief run with the band. New Edition's original lead singer, the falsetto-voiced Ralph Tresvant has a few hits on his own, most notably the  terrific `Sensitivity'.

The remianing three members of the group, Michael Bivins, Ricky Bell and Ronnie DeVoe were mainly known for their backing vocals and dance moves, but at the height of Bobby Brown-mania, they formed their own breakaway boy band, Bell Biv Devoe and, at the start of the 1990s, had a monster hit with the girl-hating hip-hop r&b song, Poison, and an accompanying album packed with further smashes. BBD didn't sustain their success but Michael Bivins immersed himself deeper into the boy-band manufacturing business as we shall see in coming weeks.