It felt like the era that would never end—the Backstreet Boys, never harmed by their gay-seeming name, took the world by storm in 1993, 'N Sync (*NSYNC, whatever!) came to fame in 1995, and, in the UK, Westlife revoltingly propagated in 1998. You see, Kurt Cobain died in 1994 and America was never the same, it could not believe in anything! The ensuing era was only slightly redeemed by the creation of Justin Timberlake, who is awesome, though awesome in that way that white men who steal well are. Now, after a decade of boy- and girl-band aftermath—the Britney, the Simpsons, the tabloid explosion, and now the slow death of that frenzy—well, now we are in an era being defined by the horrible Jonas Brothers. NKotB is putting out a new album next month! And look out, says the BBC—the era of tween band packaging is BACK.

Record companies are taking the prospects of such groups "a bit more seriously again", according to Top of the Pops magazine editor Peter Hart.

"That comes off the back of the success of something like High School Musical, where people have realised there is room for more cheesy pop in the charts and in people's hearts.

"All the record companies have been working hard to produce a pop sound which isn't perhaps as cliched as the formulaic pop we were seeing at the end of the '90s."

Now that a generation is just five or 10 years, instead of 25 or 30, every fresh crop of kids deserves their own crap plastic confection. It'll be something they can look back with fondness/rue.