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Stray Kids or BlackPink? Spice Girls or Westlife? Music executives - like Simon Cowell - have been creating girl bands and boy bands for decades. And he鈥檚 about to launch a brand new competition on Netflix to find 鈥淭he Next Act鈥�. When we talk about these groups, we generally mean good-looking young women or men who鈥檝e been brought together, and who don鈥檛 tend to write their own songs or play their own instruments. Their fans are stereotyped as being teenage girls and their mums.

Is there any truth to the belief that girl bands make better music because they are held to higher standards? The 麻豆社鈥檚 music correspondent Mark Savage explains how pop bands have evolved over the decades. We look at the different pressures and stereotyping that girl and boy bands face and we hear from some of our 麻豆社 friends - do they prefer girl bands or boy bands and why?

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