The Boy Band Phenomenon

During the 1990s and early 2000s, I devoted myself to local environmental activism and a serious, extended investigation into US foreign policy towards Latin America and the use of the War on Drugs as a surrogate national security doctrine. Thus I had hardly taken any note of the boy band phenomenon and only a handful of these generally dire and talentless singing groups managed to penetrate my consciousness. I do remember a UK group, Blue, with moderate good looks and pleasant voices, who produced a vaguely juridical-sounding single and album called ‘All Rise.’

Blue: a quintessential boy band

And although a woman from Cork once told me that every twenty-something Irishman who was not river dancing had joined a boy band, the only Irish group I can now clearly recall is Boyzone. It had that sweet-looking Ronan Keating in it, who later brought out a solo album that my friend CW once received from her family as a Mothers’ Day gift. And ok, when I worked up on the Hill, we teachers on a Year 7 school camp once did a superlative send-up of the superannuated Australian quartet Human Nature.

Ronan Keating: a neighbour is a fan

I had seen just enough of these groups on Melbourne television, however, to realise that a number of boy band conventions about membership and performance style had developed. It was of course absolutely essential that the boys in any given boy band be very good looking. And they were also expected in live performances and on MVs to wear identical or at least matching costumes, very often of a sleazoid character. And although not being obliged to play a musical instrument, they were supposed to have good and complementary singing voices. They were all expected to take a turn singing the lead, and to turn to each other and smile encouragingly as they passed the melodic baton along. The more musical of the groups could sometimes manage a bit of harmony on the choruses. Increasingly to be considered a great boy band, they also had to dance in stiffly choreographed routines. (Someone once told me that it was a group called ‘N Sync that pioneered this convention). Many of these practices (though not the dancing) reached a hilarious if enormously cynical culmination in UK impresario Simon Cowell’s contrived quasi-classical quartet Il Divo.

Yi Ba San Club

So I was no great fan of boy bands and had been know to deride heartily the musically inept ones. Yet from late 2006 when I unexpectedly became a crossover fan, I found 183 Club absolutely breathtaking–funny, glamorous and engaging singers of faux Latin dance tracks and sentimental ballads. For once I suspended my usual harsh judgments even though individually and as a unit the group sometimes fell below the usual (very low) boy band standard in a number of categories. As a colleague up on the Hill was at pains to point out, they weren’t even all that cute. That one (she pointed at Ming Dao) was far too pretty, the one next to him (Johnny Yan), was only ordinary, and the one with the hook nose (Jacky Zhu) was downright ugly. Some of my friends who were intrigued by the boys’ looks were nonetheless repelled by their singing, particularly in the less polished passages involving Sam Wang and Johnny Yan braying out the chorus as if inebriated in a karaoke parlour, or Ehlo Huang entertaining his occasional delusion that he could sing pleasingly in falsetto.

183 Club: (from left front): Sam Wang, Ehlo Huang, Ming Dao, Jacky Zhu and Johnny Yan

183 Club’s dancing was barely competent and some of the costumes tasteless or silly. The earliest clip of the boys I have seen so far dated from about 2003 in a live concert in Singapore where they were all standing in front of dangling microphones wearing white tropical suits and lip syncing badly to a Mandarin cover of Ricky Martin’s ‘Living the Vida Loca’. Later on, Sun De Rong, their patriarchal Hong Kong-style manager, brought in a choreographer who put them through some ‘N Sync moves. These can be seen to good advantage in the MV to their First Album song ‘Chess for Two’. When they tried to sing and dance live, however, the result was often an out-of-breath and disorganised shambles. Other early clips on Taiwanese variety shows reveal them dressed in stylish boy-next-door gear, but their costumes gradually became more gigolo-esque as their fame increased. My friend GL once observed tartly that they and their public would be well served if they asked their mothers to teach them how to sew the buttons back on their shirts.

183 Club: a billboard advertising Proman underwear

So what was it about 183 Club that was so appealing? Their image was friendly and as performers they had tremendous joie de vivre. In interviews they often described their relationship with each other as ‘like brothers’. And they were all tall and athletic. ‘183′ was supposed to be the average of their heights in centimetres, and even though this was bogus (the real average was about 180.1), they were indeed taller than most Asian boy band members. Sam and Johnny had played for Chinese Taipei in soccer and basketball, respectively; Jacky continued to play basketball on a serious amateur level; Ehlo was a skilful dancer and Ming Dao had once hosted an adventure travel show. And even if in looks they weren’t exactly oil paintings, nor had they been hit about the head with ugly sticks. They were all very striking and together enjoyed a kind of glamorous synergy.

Jacky Zhu in a promotion for the August 2006 hit single 'One Umbrella'. In Chinese the title of the song is a play on words on the numbers 183.

As a singing group I have to admit 183 Club were not outstanding, though better than some current favourites like Fahrenheit who cannot sing at all. In August 2006 they brought out their interesting if boringly titled First Album. They also contributed to award-winning soundtracks to the idol dramas The Prince Who Turned into a Frog and Magicians of Love. Any claim to musical distinction in these efforts centred sqaurely on the formidable talents of sultry lead singer and keyboard specialist Jacky Zhu. And yet the Vancouver native did not have a big voice or a great range. He had very little power in the low notes, a weakness which he would attempt to paper over with a half-whispered huskiness, and he would also have to begin to shift into a very girlie falsetto on surprisingly low notes. He had no penetrating edge to his voice and raucous Johnny and Sam could easily drown him out. But like the girl from the Ospedale della Pieta for whom Vivaldi set his melancholy Stabat Mater, or Mrs Cibber who sang soprano for Handel in the inaugural Messiah, who likewise did not have virtuotic voices, Jacky was (and perhaps still is) a singer who could become entirely possessed by the spirit of a song and sell it to the audience. Moreover, he could adapt his warm and vibrant vocal timbre to a great range of styles from folk to Latin to R & B with utter authenticity. He is in my view Mando-pop’s most expressive and versatile singer.

Jacky Zhu at the height of his fame as 183 Club's lead singer

Boy band career trajectories are always short. In June 2007 in Jakarta, Jacky sang in his last concert as 183 Club’s frontman. Then his expulsion from 183 Club and the Jungiery Stars umbrella over a conviction for marijuana use took effect. Fangirl rumour has it that promoters of a 183 Club concert in Hanoi a few weeks later offered Sun De Rong upwards of $100,000 US if he would allow Jacky to perform, but the autocratic manager is said to have rejected the deal outright. Then followed a year of intermittent, shabby performances for the four remaining band members, with Ehlo not confident enough, and Ming Dao not vocally equipped, to do justice to Jacky’s solos. As gigs became less frequent, the boys were sometimes combined with the remaining girls from 7 Flowers or with lesser know J-Star acts. When V and I were Taipei earlier in the year, we spotted only one sad little ad in a glossy magazine advertising an Yi Ba San Club appearance–with no accompanying photo.

Fallen idol: in November 2007 Jacky Zhu emerged from 47 days in rehab looking gaunt but resolute.

They All Grow Up

Since then Johnny Yan has resigned from 183 Club to resume playing and coaching basketball. In January V and I glimpsed him on a cable sports channel in Taipei, looking distinguished with natural hair colour and wearing a smart suit. He was doing sports commentary with great authority. Ehlo Huang, after being out of work for several months, won the lead role in a television drama (or film?) in his native Hakka dialect. This production has enjoyed very high ratings which bring with them the promise of future lead acting roles. Ming Dao is widely alleged to regret having rejected the lead role in Fated to Love You, the highest rating television soap in the history of the genre. However, the still popular star has since then filmed a soap on Hainan island, in a role that requires riding horseback and other adventurous pursuits. We have seen Sam Wang recently only in one B-grade drama, but he remains a member of perennially popular and musically competent boy band 5566.

Jacky Zhu looks down but not out at the launch party of Pause on 19 July 2008, with Ming Dao (right)

Jacky himself successfully endured a very harsh regimen in a mandatory rehab centre late last year where he did some soul searching and recalibrated his goals. Recently he has poured a small fortune into opening a wine and sushi bar called Pause in an upmarket eastern suburb of Taipei. He is imminently due to return to the stage as a challenge singer in a highly popular televised singing competition called One Million Stars. His first recording session is on Sunday 23 November. A tabloid article suggests he will sing a cover of the Jam Hsiao hit Yuan Liang Wo (Forgive Me). Loyal fans unable to lend him support in person or who live outside the television viewing area will soon be scouring YouTube for uploads. Jia you, Jacky!

For more on Jacky Zhu and other Tangerine artists, see Hong Ju Zi Fans.

Photo credits here and here and here and here and here and here and

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