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Who are the forgotten teen idols of the music world?
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Funny, I never considered Savage Garden to be teen idols, but I guess they were.
As to the question, the DeFranco Family (no relation to Ani Defranco) was a teen idol quintet out of Canada that found brief success in the early 1970s alongside the Osmonds and The Jackson 5. And when I say brief, I mean brief. Their debut single, "Heartbeat - It's a Lovebeatl", hit number three on the Hot 100 in 1973. Just two years later they released their last single, "We Belong Together".
Don’t forget the moffats they hosted the Juno’s one year. I do believe.
That song was also name dropped by Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs. The Replacements also covered it.
Minor Todd Enemy Teddy Geiger
And her legacy lives on through those awful Shawn Mendez songs lol.
1950s: Pat Boone, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Rydell
1960s: Bobby Sherman, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, people forget that a lot of the rock/pop bands like The Rolling Stones, The Rascals and The Beach Boys of these era were teen idols
1970s: David Essex (at least in the UK, and unlike most teen idols his stuff is actually pretty good), Donny Osmond, Tony DeFranco, David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett
1980s: Menudo (do any non-South Americans know this group?)
2000s: Pop rock bands Lillix, Everlife, KSM, Clique Girlz
I think in the US, Menudo are known primarily as the group where Ricky Martin started off
South America has quite a few let me tell you that lmao
Menudo is like a freaking film franchise from what I've read. Always rebooting and always forever young. Even BTS, the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Stray Kids, Blackpink, etc they don't seem as manufactured.
Menudo had a television show that was on Saturday mornings in the 1980s in the U.S. a lot of Gen Xers know them from that.
”Bobby Sherman?!”
This is a Simpsons reference most people probably have to look up.
Pat Boone did a Heavy Metal album and looked like a fool. A lot of people know him for doing that album rather than his sappy ballads like "Love Letters In The Sand" or as an idol.
hahaha had to look it up, thank you for this random information
Unrelated but "Forgotten Teen Idols" would be a great name for a band
The early 2000's were home to so many forgotten teen idols, from Dream, the girl group managed by P. Diddy that would become famous in 2001 for He Luvs U not or Samantha Mumba who's known for Gotta Tell You. Alongside this a couple others I can think of is Skye Sweetnam (Tangled Up in Me), 5ive (When the lights go out), and Ashley Tisdale from HSM (He Said, She Said)
Ashley Tisdale was the one I was into from High School Musical. Vanessa Anne Hudgens did nothing for me.
Edit: Have people really forgotten Samantha Mumba? "Gotta Tell You" is absolutely immense and has a chorus that stays in your head for years on end! I can't say I've done a deep dive into her but, man, her signature song is better than anything Britney or Christina ever put out.
Samantha Mumba strikes me as a particular niche of artist who was much bigger in a certain ecosystem than the world at large. That ecosystem being the music videos that played between shows on the Disney Channel, Radio Disney, and associated platforms. Judging by the amount of times her music was played on Disney Channel, you would have thought she was literally one of the biggest stars on the planet but I feel like she was just kind of another fly by night pop star on MTV and the radio during the peak of an era the radio was oversaturated with pop starlets.
My grandmother’s house had Disney Channel at the time. So yep, being babysat there on school holidays when I was primary school age probably contributed to her remaining in my consciousness.
But I still stand by her signature hit being orders of magnitude better than anything Britney did at the time.
I don’t think Ashley is that forgotten whenever fans ask her questions or when she does interviews
Questions about her music career come up
Also she did have a small return to music in 2018/2019 that got some attention
Samantha Mumba and Five did better in the UK...
The early 2000's were home to so many forgotten teen idols, from Dream, the girl group managed by P. Diddy that would become famous in 2001 for He Luvs U not or Samantha Mumba who's known for Gotta Tell You. Alongside this a couple others I can think of is Skye Sweetnam (Tangled Up in Me), 5ive (When the lights go out), and Ashley Tisdale from HSM (He Said, She Said)
In the late 80's, Tevin Campbell was supposed to be the "next big thing" but he could never follow-up his initial success.
He did those delightful songs for A Goofy Movie, but those weren't really for the charts...
Everyone remembers her for her acting now but I'm gonna throw out Billie Piper's name in the ring.
Honey to the bee!
Didn't Brie Larson start out as a Britney Spears copycat too?
Interestingly enough Billie dropped her debut single 3 months before Britney dropped hers but Britney blew up far more than her so she became known as a Britney clone
Day and Night was a pretty blatant attempt at emulating the Britney formula, but it worked really well...
Because We Want To is an EXTREMELY guilty pleasure...
Look up what happened when a boy band called B5 did a free Radio Disney show here in Minnesota about 20 years ago. Complete chaos, the mall shut down, the boys had their clothes and jewelry torn off, cops all over the place.
Bow Wow
Romeo
B2K
Immature
Nobody is going to mention Debbie Gibson? I think certain generations remember her, but she is not remembered like some other teen idols are.
I remember Ashley Parker Angel having a minor, brief stint as a teen idol in the mid/late-00s after O-Town split
Also, O-Town themselves.
David Cassidy and the Osmonds come to mind. Both massive teen idols in the early-mid 70s but nowadays largely unknown.
Edd "Kookie" Byrnes
Bay City Rollers?
Bow Wow
Lil Romeo
Anyone remember Stevie Brock being pushed around the same time as Aaron Carter and Jesse McCartney?
Omfg I remember him! I think there was a video he did where he was frolicking under a waterfall with some girl when he was probably no older than 12-13, it was sooo cheesy
Lesley Gore
Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks, was a Bieber type figure in the 50s.
Surprised that the Simpson Sisters and Jesse McCartney aren’t mentioned
Tony DeFranco. Now selling real estate and casually mentioning having been a musical star in the early '70s on his web page.
The Boys.