大象传媒

It鈥檚 1990. Poll tax rioters are setting the nation鈥檚 capital ablaze, and prime minister Margaret Thatcher is being ousted by her own MPs. But a welcome distraction comes in the twinkly eyed form of a pop phenomenon which will define the decade: the boy band.

Taking a cue from the all-singing, all-dancing American pop act New Kids on the Block, the UK鈥檚 Take That and East 17 would dance and shimmy their way through the British pop charts in the first half of the decade, clearing the way for a long conga line of other handsome, crooning hunks.