Some 30 years ago, Boyz II Men seduced and topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “I'll Make Love to You.” They enjoyed the view from No. 1 for 14 weeks – a record at the time – before being dethroned with another soaring ballad, 'On Bended Knee'. In 1994, it wasn't unusual for a vocal quartet like Boyz II Men to top the Hot 100 or come close. about a third of all top 10 hits that year were the work of R&B groups, rock bands, or ensembles in other lineups.
“When I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a constant barrage of groups,” says Michael Paran, a manager whose clients include Jodeci, a quartet that rivaled Boyz II Men on the charts. R&B-influenced pop groups like the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys dominated the late 1990s. But the barrage began to decline in the 2000s, according to an analysis of the top 10 hits between 1991 and 2023. Solo artists like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake — who started out in a group before striking out on his own — created a new standard for pop stardom, while rappers like Eminem and Nelly helped hip-hop reach commercial heights that they suddenly seemed out of reach for most rock bands.
And on today's Hot 100, groups are an endangered species: As of 2018, groups account for less than 8% of all top 10 singles. The last act to top the chart was Glass Animals with “Heat Waves” in March 2022. No group scored a top 10 hit as a lead artist in the first half of 2024, and no group is anywhere in the latest Hot 100 .
There are many reasons why teams fail. The decline of rock, a historically group genre, as a commercial force on the Hot 100 has certainly played a large role. But perhaps most importantly, advances in music technology have given artists of all genres the ability to create the sound of any instrument they desire without the need for collaborators. And social media, a key aspect of modern marketing, tends to reward individual efforts rather than collective enterprise. “Social media is about yours voice,” says Ray Daniels, manager and former major label A&R. “Not all of you voice.”
% of Billboard's top 10 100 hits by group
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In addition, aspiring artists have a better understanding of the financial reality of groups, which are expensive to grow and then share the profits in many ways. And the labels aren't matchmaking teams like they did decades ago.
“I was in bands, I put the bands together, I did the record deals, I did everything,” says Jonathan Daniel, co-founder of Crush Music, a management company with a roster that includes both major groups (Weezer) and solo stars (Miley Cyrus ). “Believe me, if I was a kid now, I'd never be in a band – I'd be solo all the way. I wouldn't need those other kids.”
The groups always had a practical purpose: Creating a melodic racket was much easier with the help of partners who played other instruments or lived harmonies. “Historically you often needed a team to make money – it was almost harder to be a solo artist,” Daniels explains. “You had to have people coming together and playing the music.”
This has not been the case for some time. GarageBand hit Mac computers in 2004. Online sites like BeatStars allow singers to rent fully configured instruments. Artists can make beats and record vocals on their phone. “A guy can go in there and make himself sound like a group if he needs to,” notes Paran.
This can make artists' lives much more comfortable because they don't have to spend time convincing — or arguing with or stroking the egos of — team members who probably have their own opinions about songwriting and production. “It's a lot easier to have your own opinion than to have team members opine on what they want,” says Bill Diggins, TLC's longtime director.
While technology has largely eliminated the need for musical collaborators, executives believe the prominence of X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and other similar platforms further elevates individuals over groups. “How often do groups make content together on TikTok?” asks Joey Arbagey, another former A&R who worked with Fifth Harmony, among others.
Even bandmates or singers in a group are likely working to boost their own social media presence—which represents a safety net if the group falls apart. “Each artist is focused on making their own numbers,” Arbagey continues. “That kind of destroyed that feeling of creating together.”
And those artists who still want to create with others often know the financial implications of that decision: If they do it together, they don't make as much as if they do it alone. “When we were kids, we'd watch the Rolling Stones and think, 'They're rich, they've got a plane,'” says Crush's Daniel. “We didn't go, 'Well, they have to split all the money five ways, but Elton John doesn't.' Today, however, thanks to the Internet, “artists are much more aware of all aspects of the music industry,” says Diggins.
On the other hand, when tags are involved, groups are also more expensive to support. “It's cheaper to deal with the work of a solo artist than it is to deal with moving a lot of people and styling and marketing a lot of people,” says Tab Nkhereanye, songwriter and senior vice president of A&R at BMG.
The groups' heyday also coincided with a time when record labels had far more influence over what music was popular – mainly because anyone with ambitions of being heard outside their region needed the record labels' deep pockets and close relationships with radio and television. . Record companies scouted for talent, helped form groups, found songs to cut, and then pushed them out of the mainstream channels. “It was kind of a machine,” says Paran.
Today, however, American record companies do not usually deal with artists in the early stages of their careers, when once they could have turned into a group. Instead, the label often comes along after acts have already proven their ability to attract a dedicated audience, usually through a combination of social media — which, again, caters to individual personalities — and streaming. And on top of that, the influence of traditional media like radio and television, which served as a platform for so many groups in the past, has subsided.
Chris Anokute, a longtime A&R manager, points out that “most of the funniest boy and girl groups in the last 10 years came from TV shows like The coefficient x — One Direction, Fifth Harmony. “I don't know if you can break acts like that if mainstream platforms like TV or radio aren't really moving the needle in the same way,” he continues. “Everybody was watching when these teams came on TV 10 or 15 years ago,” agrees Arbagey. “Now nobody has cable.”
There's at least one country where music-based TV shows still drive listening behavior: South Korea continues to churn out groups at a steady clip, and BTS has made nine appearances in the Hot 100's top 10 since 2018. (Still, it's Notably, HYBE — the company behind BTS — and Geffen Records are trying to develop a new girl group in the U.S. through a Netflix series rather than network TV.
And while the groups aren't taking over the Hot 100 with big singles like they used to, they remain prominent in another corner of the industry. “The only place where teams still have a lot of water is the live experience,” notes Daniel. In the US in the first half of 2024, U2 had the top tour by a wide margin, according to Billboard Boxscore, and Depeche Mode and the Eagles also appeared in the top 10.
While these are all veterans, more recent groups like The 1975 and Fall Out Boy also entered the top 50. The presence of ensembles on this chart makes sense: On tours, even most solo acts bring backup bands or other musicians to help them bring their songs to life. Musical wunderkinds are few and far between, and crowds aren't always interested in watching a lone performer sing or rap over a backing track for two hours, so the group act is still commonplace.
But at the upper end of the Hot 100, the closest thing to a group is usually a collaboration between two or three one-acts. “When you don't see it, then you don't want to be,” Nkhereanye says of the groups. “These days, it's sexier to be a solo artist.”
