Boyzone, B*Witched, Scott Mills, and S Club

Initial stages of Boyzone go back as early as 1993, Dublin, Ireland. The whole project was heavily premeditated and singularly conceptualized by entertainment manager Louis Walsh. Walsh sought to create the Irish equivalent to the English pop group “Take That” and started by recruiting his ideal line up, which was carried out through three rigorous performance auditions. After starting out with 500 contestants Walsh gradually and systematically narrowed his choices down to 10 by the 3rd audition and at the end he finally settled on Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Keith Duffy, Richard Rock, Shane Lynch, and Mark Walton. However as a result of inner turmoil amongst the group and opposition from some of the members’ parents, this line up did not last very long and later morphed into the five member line up: Shane Lynch, Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Mikey Graham, and Keith Duffy.

After regularly performing at various Irish music venues and pubs the band eventually landed a record deal with Polygram in 1994 thanks due to their cover of the Four Seasons “Working My Way Back to You”. The band had another hit with the Osmonds’ cover “Love Me for a Reason” and broke to the top of both the Irish and UK Album Charts with their studio debut “Said and Done”.

Their sophomore effort “A Different Beat” proved to be an even greater success for the band and marked a turning point their career, moving them from the title of local pop idols to the peak of international craze. This album featured original classics such as their titled track as well as “It’s a Wonder”. They also covered the Michael Jackson song “Ben” and the Bee Gees’ pop standard “Words”. They even threw in a folk traditional “She Moves Through the Fair”.

Boyzone’s 3rd studio album “Where We Belong” further showcased the group’s writing abilities, sporting 14 songs with six of them being written by the band. A cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Baby Can I Hold You” was featured on the album as well as a cover of John Michael Montgomery’s track “I Love the Way You Love Me”, which appeared on the re-issue. This release entered the top 10 album charts in 11 countries, topping the charts in six of them (including Ireland and the UK). Though this album did comparatively weak in the US it still broke into the US Billboard 200 Album charts.

By the close of the 90s Boyzone issued two compilation albums: “By Request”, which sold an astonishing 4,000,000 copies worldwide and “The Singles Collection ’94-’99”, which did not do nearly as well. The group toured extensively in support for these releases, but in January 2000 they decided to disband. Keating and Gatley both stayed involved in t music, continuing on with their solo careers and Duffy tried his hand at acting.

In 2008 Boyzone re-united for a 29 city tour that was met with unanimous favor. The band sold over 200,000 tickets, within three hours of them going on sale. Their 2nd leg of the “Better Tour” took place in 2009 and also proved to be a success; however, it marked their last tour to feature founding member Stephen Gately as he passed away later that year. Despite this tragic blow to the band, they continued touring and releasing albums.

In 2010 they issued their 1st album of original material in 12 years, “Brother”. This album debuted at No.1 on the UK, Scottish, and Irish Album Charts and was also met with generally favorable reviews. They followed that release with their 2013 album “BZ20” and in 2014 they issued another compilation album, “Love me for a Reason” as well as the live release “Dublin to Detroit”.

Boyzone have proven themselves to be important figures in the modern pop landscape and have since gone on to act as mentors to musicians ranging from Clay Aiken, One Direction, and Robyn.