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Clearing Something Up

 I’m gonna help you with this, and I don’t need a dubious degree in a dubious discipline to do it. What is a “boy band”?

If it’s white/Latino/Asian kids singing Black music, or pop in a Black style, it’s a boy band. We know it, but we don’t say it. If it’s Black kids doing the exact same thing, it’s a vocal group. It might not even be fair, but that’s how it works. It’s even more obvious if the audience is pre-teen or teenage white girls. That’s a boy band.

You might feel slightly embarrassed to put on really old New Edition; awkward songs about youthful crushes. But they did OK after that. I don’t have any Backstreet Boys albums; I just don’t. Why? I wasn’t their audience. That’s why Andy Samberg getting criminals to sing “I Want It That Way” was really funny; we know he’s twisting a gender and sex boundary, even if we don’t say it.

This is your “JK Liberal Post Of The Week.” Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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