Track 04 The Golden Age For the rst time in pop history, someone decided you could assemble a boy band the way you assemble a commercial product There is a precise moment when the boy band phenomenon stopped being an intuitive spark or a lucky convergence of traits and became a streamlined, programmed industry. That moment happened in the 1990s. And it had a speci c address: Orlando, Florida. Before then, vocal groups formed relatively organically out of Motown, out of families, or o street corners. There was a producer, sure; there was a label, there was a system. But the starting point was always pre existing talent showing up, not talent being manufactured from scratch. The 1990s ipped that logic entirely. For the rst time in pop history, someone decided you could assemble a boy band the way 19