British boyband Blue

Duncan wasn't out. Their music was Britpop that bit off the American style. It shouldn't surprise that America didn't buy a facsimile of its own sound.

All I know is that Duncan James is a LOVE RAT, from the tabloid headlines of the time I was stuck in Heathrow for 36 hours.

Or is he from Five?

That guy from FIVE was fucking hot.

[quote]How come these lads couldn’t crack America?

Because they suck donkey dick.

Same reason as Robbie Williams couldn't. They're not butch enough and their music reads as too "gay" for the American market.

Don't forget the tiny little fact that they are absolutely no good at all.

I know Elton will sing with a toilet roll holder but I still can't quite believe that Stevie Wonder and Angie Stone appeared on a song with Blue.

One of the gayest British boybands from the '90s was Bad Boys Inc. More like Mary Inc.!

No one beats Take That for GAY.

[quote] Their music was Britpop

Erm, think you might be a bit confused, luv...

Britpop in the broad sense (british pop music), hon.

R9 eh? Members of Blue have had sex with each other, and admitted to more than once including live on telly. They take it in the gay stakes, surely.

Good lord, forgotten all about them, what pit did you dig them out of R8?!Thing about British boy bands is that they were squarely aimed at British young teenage girls who liked an aesthetic that I suppose is not actually that butch I guess...

No. Take That wore fetish wear in their early years. Even when they broke through, Howard was on stage in chaps and with his bare ass out.

'90s era Boybands were a thing for 5 years MAX. We were already at full capacity and then the trend imploded in the early 2000s.

[Quote] British boy bands is that they were squarely aimed at British young teenage girls who liked an aesthetic that I suppose is not actually that butch I guess...

That's not all that different to the "kid member" thing with American boybands (Joey McIntyre, Justin Timberlake) etc.

"Hey Google, define gay music video"

They're ugly and they suck.

Next.

[quote]'90s era Boybands were a thing for 5 years MAX

There were a LOT of them in the UK

911

A1

Another Level

Brother Beyond

East 17

JLS

Worlds Apart

etc.

Duncan James is still gorgeous.

Sorry....

seems to be the hardest word...

R19 True. Though JLS came much later, in the late 2000s-early 10s.

Come at me, but ‘Beat Again’ was the only really good memorable and catchy pop song they did. Blue had more hits, as did 5ive & 911 to a lesser extent.

The period of manufactured pop between the late 90s-early 2000s Brit boyband boom and the emergence of One Direction is a weird one.

N’Sync as a back up vocal group for Céline

Lee Ryan might be the stupidest boybander to ever live and breathe, and he may look like a bargain-bin Frank Lampard, but he does have a lovely clear and emotive voice.

R20 that’s what’s so hilarious about Blue videos. In the ones featuring tons of hot babes all over the group, the only guy of the four who is hot enough to actually have an irl shot with women that good-looking is Duncan....and he’s the gay one.

[Quote] the only guy of the four who is hot enough to actually have an irl shot with women that good-looking

What a delightfully homosexual point of view.

[quote]How come these lads couldn’t crack America?

After the Spice Girls split, in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, America had grown tired of British artists and there was a good 5-7 years where British artists were considered uncool in the US. I even remember reading an article during that time (around 2003 maybe?) even discussing a week where there were absolutely no British artists on the US music charts for the first time in decades.

Both US and UK pop scenes were dominated by Scandi-pop. There was no need to import British pop stars when American pop stars were already working with the same collaborators.

Blue have had a rough last decade, apparently.

Simon’s brother committed suicide out of nowhere in 2018, while Simon was living just over the road from him; Duncan almost died of a severe cerebro-spinal injury in 2016 (beware, the story about that at the link is so disgusting and scary to read); Lee was a raging alcoholic for ten years, a habit that gave him lymph nodes on his throat that damaged his voice; Anthony at one point hit almost 20 stone in weight, due to binge-eating to soothe his depression, and battled resultant health problems.

Sounds almost like they were hexed or something.

Lee could have gone solo. His late-2000s single’ Turn Your Car Around’ is a lovely bit of shimmering sweeping AOR/poprock balladry, and did quite well at the time.

But that's an example of him going solo, hon.

Amuses me that the Frau brigade of the time tried to get their videos booted off TRL/MTV for being oversezualised.

Here in the days of ‘WAP’, their quaint cheeky euphemisms and layers of trashy clothing seem positively Victorian.

[quote]Lee could have gone solo.

He tried to have a solo career, but he didn’t have much success. He had a solo album in 2005.

Duncan seems like quite the attention-seeker.

This is a fun story.

R34 and Simon Cowell is a tiny bit orange-tinted...

Any naked dicks?

Lee has been catfished on webcam.

.....

R38/R39 surprising it took so long. He’s the dimmest himbo in the U.K.

He’s doing that tilted angle thing girls do in selfies to make them look better, only with his cock. Though to be fair his webcam quality is prehistoric.

Wow, there is so much UK pop music that is completely unknown in The States. This group Blue, Robbie Williams, Girls Aloud and other girly pop groups. And I understand why, the sound and look just isn't marketable to American tastes. Too campy, too cheeky, too gay-seeming, shamelessly overproduced, too colorful and corny. The US was completely sick of boy bands and pop groups around this time and hip-hop, alternative rock and pop-R&B was embraced with open arms. The UK seemed a decade behind and still pushes out boy band and girl groups.

I was so into them. All Rise and One Love were their best songs. The backup dancers were strange looking. It was like they were picked up at the Point.

R39 he was my favorite, still looking good and nice cock, too

One love was such a banger.

[quote] the sound and look just isn't marketable to American tastes. Too campy, too cheeky, too gay-seeming, too colorful and corny.

Yes, good observation.

The U.K. pop-culture sensibility has always tended more to mischievous camp, winks & nudges. We like and respond to innuendo, it’s just how we are. We invented glam, didn’t we?

Colour and cheese go down well with the general public, too—‘end of the Pier’ is another way to put it. It all makes sense when you refer to the roots of our public entertainments, from courtly troubadours & Mayings; Shakespeare & masque; music hall & Punch & Judy; to the lurid, slapsticky, darkly humorous and naughty sitcoms in more recent times.

When we do make dark serious drama & music, though, it is utterly bleak and desolately sad (*Radiohead—Pyramid Song,mp3* plays). So you could say the British cultural poles are quite extreme.

America is more "stay in your lane." Were the Cheetah Girls not chessy? High School Musical? I believe the High School Musical soundtracks were big sellers. One can't deny such popular success.

Apparently Internet trolls have bullied Duncan’s teen daughter, because he’s gay. Awful that people are still like that, in this day and age.

Duncan himself endured a lot of torment over being gay from his Catholic boyhood, so it must really hurt to see his daughter being bullied over it too.

Still, it's publicity.

I had no idea that Duncan James came out!

He's come out multiple times - first as bisexual, then years later as gay.

[quote] America is more "stay in your lane." Were the Cheetah Girls not chessy? High School Musical? I believe the High School Musical soundtracks were big sellers. One can't deny such popular success.

Bad comparison. Those were Disney products marketed to the tween niche market in the mid-2000s. They weren't being played on any mainstream radio station. The mainstream boy bands like NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees and O-Town were practically over by 2000.

That's what I mean by "stay in your lane." UK TV/Radio would have many varied acts rub shoulders. Acts weren't kept away from one another like in the US.

R52 Oh okay. I see. You're right that US radio is very separated by genres and demographics.

US labels also killed the singles format, whereas as UK labels didn't. That helped "pure pop" acts in the UK have greater reach among the general population. Certain US acts were further ghettoized by that and other practices - e.g. Britney Spears and the Clear Channel business, and the knock on effect on her singles chart positions from poor radio play and no physical singles.

Yes, the US radio suffered under the Telecommunications Act signed by Clinton in 1996. It allowed a monopoly of the radio stations by major corporations thus reducing the amount of musical competition and diversity, closing down many local stations and firing a lot of DJs. So the more spontaneous playlists created by real music-heads who worked as DJs got replaced by a carefully selected lineup decided by market research.

Singles did become popular again in the mid-to-late 2000s with the popularity of the iPod. Artists like Rihanna made huge amount of money off of her singles alone. I've heard about Clear Channel and the Britney situation but she did at least recover by the time of In The Zone with Toxic and Everytime being huge hits for her.

R47 Not surprised. England is a backwards shithole and still very conservative outside of London. Just look at the comments under the article at that link - The asshole posters are basically saying the bullying is OK. Sick country.

Some of us weren’t meant to crack America, but it’s okay some of their gays still love me!

I thought Lee Ryan also coming out or maybe I'm confused with Duncan.

Well, Blue simply weren’t a very good band. Couple of decent songs, but not particularly talent:

Duncan James was and remains utterly gorgeous, however. Lee Ryan doesn’t seem to have much in the top storey but he’s hot in a grubby kinda way and I certainly wouldn’t turn him down.

The music, though? No one even remembers it here in the Uk where they had hits.

R59 Lee’s appeal is interesting. He’s technically pasty and ratfaced as well as a a rude self-absorbed moron, but there is a lot of odd considerable irreverent charm in his geezery, pilled-out, thinning-hair and snowshoe-feet vintage pretty-boy persona. He makes chavvy idiocy work like no other.

But yes, he is only a few clicks above developmentally-challenged, which is offputting.

Well, I'll give The UK props for having some boy bands with members who are actually hot and having their boy bands target gay audiences.

R42 Duncan still makes me rise. R60 bless poor Lee’s heart, he really is quite dim.

Brit pop post Spice Girls could not get arrested in the US. Carson Daly tried to make Mystique happen in the US - Jimmy Kimmel even let them perform on his show (despite his face showing he was embarrassed). - and they still never took off. Even with a decent song Scandalous.

Kylie Minogue had only two hits in the US: "Locomotion" and "Can't Get You Out Of My Head". Many straight guys only know her from the Street Fighter movie.

"Get Outta My Way" peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart after originally debuting at number thirty-five and ascending steadily.[25] It became Minogue's fifth number one on the chart and her second from the album Aphrodite. Subsequently, Minogue's next two singles, "Better than Today" and "Higher" (her duet with Taio Cruz), both also reached number one on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart.[26] As of March 2011, the single had sold 66,000 digital units in the US

Didn't Lee Ryan say some very stupid things about 9/11?

They all seem special. Can any of them read and write?

The spiceboy awkwardness of these stupid men honestly fuels me.

Love All Rise at their reunion a few years ago. Duncan James looks stoned AF.

One Love.

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I'm sort of surprised Lee Ryan can afford internet service. Maybe he posted from a McDonald's and used free Wi-Fi.

Ok, that was a foul-mouthed and needlessly aggressive bit of Internet bullying (and I’m no fan of the T, saying that), but this wham line from Lee was really funny to me for some reason:

[quote] Go f**k ya mum. And tell her I'll be around later. And ya dad.

What a shithousing. I love him.

Are we about to have a Bi vs. Trans culture war?

Also what does this T loon expect Duncan James to do about their little keyboard tiff? It’s not his fight nor is it his problem, and he’s not Lee’s social worker or or minder. Just because Dunc is a gay man, he’s got to sort out the drama of others? Leave off.

I don’t know why but “You insignificant cunt” really made me laugh. That’s now my insult of choice. But seriously it sounds like he really has anger management issues, or maybe a personality disorder. I’d still let him fuck me though.

[quote] it sounds like he really has anger management issues, or maybe a personality disorder.

He’s always been very touchy and a bit ADD/BPD seeming tbh, as well as pigshit thick to a clinical degree. And he is a former longtime alcoholic. Dangerous mix.

Lee can be endearing and charming in a himbo way when he’s calm and being nice, but his violent mood swings are a big red flag. Almost like he’s got a split personality, or he has abuse/victim issues. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him.

Source: growing up with a little fangirl sister who was obsessed with Blue (and every other boyband) for a decade.

I still kinda hope a Lee/Duncan sex tape exists and will someday make it into public circulation.

R77 Duncan is adamant that they never fucked as Lee claimed, so if there is evidence then there’s no question it’s had an injunction slapped on it by now.

Would be intriguing, though. Who do we reckon topped? (and why was it Dunc?)

Something had to have happened between some of them at some point.

[quote]why don't you f**k your dad with a pineapple and let your mum watch

Lee's put downs are better than most drag queens.

What's the likelihood Layla Zee Susan (AWFUL name, AWFUL) will now get hired for the next series of Drag Race.

I doubt Lee and Duncan went as far as anal. Maybe a drunk suck/wank or Lee wanking in the corner while Duncan gets fucked on all 4s by a gaydar hook up.

They were never that big in the UK to begin with, and appeared when boybands were in decline. It's not rocket science.

R79 British popband McFly did the same kind of publicity with Attitude, etc., and they’re all ostensibly straight (though I have my doubts about Tom Fletcher).

[quote] They were never that big in the UK to begin with, and appeared when boybands were in decline. It's not rocket science.

They were a huge pop group. They had 3 number one albums over 3 years and huge singes. They weren’t as big as Westlife but on par with S Club, Steps and 5ive.

Their popularity dipped in the 4th year before they called it a day, at which point reality tv had really taken over the charts.

Duncan bases his drag persona on Kerry Katona lmaoo

R79 I remember Duncan once saying in a telly interview that fucking Lee would “be like incest...he’s like my stupid gross little brother”. Duncan has known the lad since he was a teen, and Lee’s mind is still that of a child, so I can understand that point.

I didn't know Duncan had a drag show. No planned Blue reunion, I guess.

I keep seeing the advert for the new series of Celebrity Masterchef and when I should be focusing on Kem Cetinay and his arms I keep looking out for Duncan and his new face.

Fair play to to Duncan, he knows he looks awful and is in on the joke comparing his appearance to Rylan Clark, the tragic soon to be divorced celebrity personality.

R66 nah mate, you’re thinking of JT. Totally out of order, didn’t agree with it at the time and I don’t now. Bad from the Skip there.

Duncan is so embarrassing.

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The brows, the lips...

The brows are actually the worst aspect.

There's something going on in the space between his brows. He actually looks like he's on the road to Thierry Mugler.

[quote]I keep seeing the advert for the new series of Celebrity Masterchef and when I should be focusing on Kem Cetinay and his arms I keep looking out for Duncan and his new face.

[quote]Duncan is currently on Celebrity MasterChef UK but his botox hadn't settled yet

THREE POSTS APART!!!!! YES HUN WE KNOW

R87 do you think he keeps going on about the Botox to distract from all the other rather horrifying work he’s also had done?

R50 oh dear, he is only 43? He looks weird.

^^ I meant R90

Duncan was so hot. He needs to not fuck up his face. A few wrinkles looks far hotter than the waxwork treatment.

By default, Simon is the hot one off of Blue now.

Lee may be thick but Duncan is no rocket scientist. Duncan gave some interview (it was in a magazine/paper) where he explained why he's now calling himself gay: he said that although he's still sexually attracted to women, he thought that once he started dating men he should identify as gay.

Duncan is so into women that he's taking cosmetic inspiration from them.

He's clearly even fucking with his cheeks. He's admitted to jaw work. I hope he's not being a bad influence on Zac Efron.

[quote]By default, Simon is the hot one off of Blue now.

Simon was always hot, unless you're a "No blacks no Asians no offence" kind of guy.

Why hasn’t anyone mentioned me yet?

I’d happily do all if Blue, preferably together. Even with their weird Botox and questionable IQs.

Poor Lee, he can't afford the speeding fine he got for driving too fast in his Mercedes.

He's got two weeks to get his chav ass onto OnlyFans

Their music videos take me back to a simpler time when everyone kept their own faces unfilled and didn’t mind showing them onscreen without five layers of contoured drag makeup.

Most of the girls in the ‘Bubblin’ video are too anorexic and wearing hideous cheap-looking porno/stripper clothes, but still they’re recognisable as young pretty human women with visibly unique faces rather than Botox genderless aliens in pancake. I miss it, and I’m sure the Blue boys do too.

R105 I assume he’s sleeping in the Merc, then.

JLS are superior in every way. They show their work in every single.

And they’re back!

New album and singles just dropped, ladies!

The lads are all puffy wrinkled Dads now but they've still got vibes!

Duncan had a Brad Pitt look going for a while

They were ok musically speaking, but I remember them with a smile on my face because when they hit big I was in my early teens with hormones kicking in, leaving childhood behind, and I had a severe crush on Duncan. I knew I was gay.

R87 Now he looks like a lightskin Peruvian immigrant. Too chunky, cheekbones too big and, if you are man, NEVER mess with your lips (and brows).

Lee embraced and confessed to his bisexuality years ago, before it was trendy, which is refreshing for someone in his position.

Unfortunately, even after being Out for almost decade, he still hasn't quite got around to facing that he might be more of a GAY-leaning bisexual than anyone first assumed.