Get ready for another potential OMG boy-band moment: 5 Seconds of Summer will make their debut on the MTV Video Music Awards on August 24.
The Australian pop-punk-loving quartet of tousle-haired hunks don’t consider themselves a boy band but the legions of adoring teenage female fans may beg to differ.
Boy-band performances at MTV’s over-the-top annual celebration have a long history of generating hysteria. Here’s a look at five key moments in boy band-VMA history:
• New New Edition The first official boy-band appearance was New Edition's epic 1990 reunion. Covering six songs, Bell Biv DeVoe (which included three of New Edition's original members), Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant all performed separately before coming together in a reunion performance to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the group's founding.
• Bigtime Boys Sure, looking back it's a head-scratcher, but the Backstreet Boys used to be the biggest boy band in the world. Appearing for the first time in 1998, BSB flexed their muscles by taking Best Group Video over ... Radiohead? ... and performed the instantly recognisable hit Everybody (Backstreet's Back).
• 'N Sync 'n' Britney 'N Sync arrived a year after BSB in 1999 and immediately played a trump card: Britney Spears. The future megastars teamed up for a medley of ... One More Time and Tearin' Up My Heart. With a production design that evoked after-school detention, it was not either of the baby-faced acts' greatest moment on the awards.
• Ringing up the Jonases The super-wholesome Jonas Brothers showed up in 2008 to play Lovebug and got verbally roughed up by Russell Brand. It got worse when Brand's future wife, Katy Perry, also made fun of them.
• Poor Harry Then there was One Direction's reception in 2013. The British group were booed by fans while accepting an award and the always-tousled Harry Styles became the apparent target of Taylor Swift's ire. Swift took home a trophy for her I Knew You Were Trouble video and said: "I also want to thank the person who inspired this song." Cameras cut to Styles.
