Track 6 - The Modern Hybrid The New Playbook: Play, Write, Produce What separates the modern hybrid bands from their '90s predecessors isn't the quality of the hooks. It is artistic autonomy. The Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls were products in the best or worst sense of the word, take your pick of a top down industrial system that built them from the outside. Their tracks were written by Swedish hitmakers, their image was micromanaged by corporate teams, and their careers were mapped out in boardroom meetings. It worked awlessly, but it came with a steep tax: individual artistic identity was sacri ced for the group, and the group s identity was sacri ced for show business. The modern hybrid bands shattered this paradigm, or at the very least, radically altered its terms. The Jonas Brothers play their own instruments and started writing their own material as teenagers. One Direction, though manufactured by The X Factor just like the old school, systematically fought for and won writing and production credits that '90s boy bands never could have dreamed of; tellingly, the most enduring tracks in their catalog bear the members' own names in the credits. BTS took this principle to its absolute extreme: RM, Suga, J Hope, and the rest of the members are primary writers and producers of their own discography, wielding a level of creative control that very few bands in any genre can claim. These are no longer just pretty faces assembled by a manager with a corporate spreadsheet. These are artists using the boyband format as a launching pad rather than their nal de nition. 31