23 October 2015
A few months earlier in 2015 we saw Ireland’s last number one from an Irish boyband, HomeTown’s ‘Cry For Help’. Now here’s Ireland’s last number one from any boyband. We’ll still have a chart-topping single from a girl group, though, plus solo number ones from former band-boys including two of 1D. But from boybands, at the time of writing, after 45 number ones by 12 different all-male vocal groups over 25 years, it’s been a decade and counting.
Not that boybands have gone away. The decline of the reality TV talent show format, from whence sprung One Direction, leaves Korea’s K-pop idol industry as the world’s leading producer of boy bands and girl groups, and the global 2025 chart success via Netflix of KPop Demon Hunters and especially ‘Golden’ by its fictional K-pop girl group Huntr/X suggests that the streaming platforms could still spring another wildly popular boyband on us. And though they’ve had only three top ten hits in Ireland despite their active online armies of fans, BTS are due to return after military service in 2026, plus now they’ll have had basic weapons training.
One Direction’s late era may have included the one-member-leaving trope, though not the highest-profile one in this case, but at least they didn’t go down the well-trodden “mature” boyband route of suits, high stools, and dreary first-dance content. The poppy and likeable ‘Perfect’ is still rooted in youthfulness and living for the moment. There’s a tang of spice in Harry’s mid-section lines: “And if you’re looking for someone to write your breakup songs about / Then baby, I’m perfect”. Considering the distance travelled in 35 years from our first, NKOTB’s cheap and clichéd ‘Hangin’ Tough’, if 1D’s ‘Perfect’ really does prove to be the last then that’s an okay way to end our story of Ireland’s boyband number ones.
