The Wanted have all the ingredients of a boy band. Good looks, good melodies and above all, music that would make you cuddle up or jump onto the dance floor. As is with boy bands, the one thing you can expect them talking about is love, love and more love.

The Wanted, for those who don’t know, are a British pop boy band based in London, comprising of Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes. Tom Parker, who was also part of the band, passed away in 2022 due to cancer.

The Wanted burst onto the pop scene in 2010, when the boy band era had almost vanished, with little or no competition, except for co-patriots One Direction on their heels to steal the limelight, if not the girls.

Two members of the band, Siva Kaneswaran and Max George, were in Mumbai in mid-May and performed a concert at Dublin Square, Phoenix Market city, Kurla as part of their India Tour, organised by KCT Entertainment. The duo gave a wonderful performance in front of their fans, with two lucky fans getting a chance to be with them on stage for one of their songs. The boys harmonized well, their vocals were pretty amazing.

Soon after the concert, VERUS FERREIRA spoke to band members Siva Kaneswaran and Max George on their debut visit to Mumbai, the loss of bandmate Tom Parker, the band’s reunion, their Greatest Hits album and the future of the band.

VF: What does this visit to India mean to you? 
MG: Yes we are visiting India for the first time. As a band, we have always wanted to travel to meet our Indian fans. Seeing the online support was incredible, especially for Siva as his heritage is South Indian. 

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The Korean wave finally reached Indian shores when six-member boy band IN2IT (a.k.a. IN2ITXION) performed in Mumbai, Faridabad and New Delhi in April this year, their first tour of India.

Early this year, Indian K-pop fans urged film director Karan Johar to seek out EXO’s Kai at a Gucci show in Paris. Their selfie instantly blew up on Instagram and Twitter across India. Other Bollywood actors (and their children) are also reportedly piqued by South Korea’s music groups with their stunning choreography and dynamic danceable vibes. In February this year, INOX theatres screened a concert film by globally-acclaimed BTS on two days in 88 cinemas across the country. K-pop fans inundated theatres with flash mobs, fan chants and thank you gifts and letters for INOX.

With many K-pop bands joining the fray, BTS is getting stiff competition from a band making waves all over the world. The nine-member EXO was nominated in the Top Social Artist category at the recent Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas alongside BTS, GOT7, Ariana Grande and One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson. Though BTS took home the award despite coming onto the music scene two years after EXO, it is only a matter of time before EXO emerge top favourites at music awards in the future.

EXO perform melodic, dance-oriented pop music influenced by hip-hop and R&B. Formed by S.M. Entertainment producer, Lee Soo-Man, the band originally consisted of 12 members divided into two sub-groups — EXO-K and EXO-M. It was Lee Soo Man’s idea of a boy group from China and South Korea which would promote in different places at the same time, mainly their homelands, as well as record the same songs in both Chinese and Korean.

EXO-K focus on playing in South Korea, hence the ‘K’ for Korea, and features Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai and Sehun. Suho is the leader of EXO as well as EXO-K.

EXO-M specialize in performing in China for a Mandarin-speaking audience, hence the ‘M’ for Mandarin (Chinese). The members include Xiumin, Lay and Chen. EXO-M also has an official subgroup, EXO-CBX, formed in 2016 by Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin.

The name EXO comes from the word “exoplanet” and stands for the idea that members are new humans from an unknown world. The group now has nine members after the withdrawal of three Chinese members — Xiumin, Suho, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O, Kai and Sehun.

Lee Soo-Man released over a dozen teaser videos to create a wave of anticipation for a band that would rule the music waves; the gap between the release of the first teaser and the debut was for a 100-day global promotion, to let the world know the name. EXO finally debuted on 8 April 2012.

In 2012, EXO released several singles including What Is Love, History and Mama. In May 2013, they released their full-length debut album XOXO.

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What makes the South Korean pop group BTS one of the most popular boy bands in the world today? Is it their great sounding music, their music videos, their good looks or their lyrics targeted at teens? It would be an amalgamation of all this as it is difficult to pinpoint the real reason for their immense success. But watching the band grow so big in barely five years, it is their unity too that has survived their hectic schedules.

After the dance single Gangnam Style (2012) from Korean pop singer Psy that took the world by storm, it is time that a boy band made it big showing the world that K-Pop has a huge following not only in their homeland South Korea, but also around the world.

BTS (Bangtan Boys in Korean) perform a blend of energetic dance-pop and hip-hop that has helped them build a global following while also becoming the most successful K-pop act in U.S. chart history. The fact that they were one of the performers at this year’s Billboard Music Awards, performing and winning Top Social Artiste for the second year in a row, was enough to show the magnitude of their popularity and how far their music has reached. The band garnered 300 million votes in the first year.

The tongue-twisting septet’s lineup includes team leader and rapper Kim Namjoon a.k.a. Rap Monster, singer Kim Seokjin a.k.a. Jin, rapper Minyoongi a.k.a. Suga, rapper and choreographer Jung Hoseok a.k.a. J Hope, singer and choreographer Jimin Park, singer Kim Taehyung a.k.a. V, and singer, rapper, and choreographer Jungkook Jeon. The group members also produce, compose and write their lyrics themselves in English and in Korean. Their music is a combination of love ballads and rapping with topical lyrics.

BTS debuted in 2013 with the first installment of their School Trilogy series and their debut single 2 Cool 4 Skool. A few months later, they released No More Dream that did not take off, but when they released part two of the saga, the EP O!RUL8,2,?, it clicked on the Asian charts. The trilogy’s final installment, Skool Luv Affair, was released around Valentine’s Day in 2014 and was a stupendous hit instantly. The year ended with BTS bagging a host of awards in their home country. But the big bite across Asia and the world was still to come.

Later that year, BTS judged a K-Pop cover dance competition at the Bridge to Korea festival in Russia, an event aimed at promoting tourism between the two countries, and also performed on stage, showcasing their talent to the world. A month later they attended KCON (an annual Korean wave convention held in different locations across the world) in Los Angeles. On their return, they released their first Korean studio album Dark & Wild which peaked at No. 2 on the Gaon Chart and sold over 200,000 copies. Things were looking up for them and supported by two singles: Danger and War Of Hormone, BTS was looking at conquering the charts in the U.S. The band ended the year with their first Japanese studio album Wake Up that peaked at No. 3 on the weekly Oricon Albums Chart selling 28,000 copies.

PLUS! Everything you wanted to know about Jin, Suga, Jungkook, J-Hope, Jimin, V and RM!

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His powerful vocals on his solo hit track Sign Of The Times from his self-titled debut album, is currently topping the charts all over.

English-born singer and teen heartthrob Harry Styles, best known as one of the five members of boyband One Direction, has moved on to a solo career and is living it up just like his bandmates who have also made music all by themselves.

Harry was the youngest member of One Direction, and his curly hair, wide smile and sweet-yet-naughty demeanour made him a fan favourite and poster boy. He sang some of the lead vocals on the band’s first single, What Makes You Beautiful, released in September 2011 in the U.K.

Harry Edward Styles was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire (U.K.) on 1 February 1994 (he is just 23 years old). His parents divorced when he was only 7 years. His mother later remarried. He and his brother Mike and sister Gemma were brought up by their mother in the town of Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. Harry attended Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School, where he and three of his friends formed a band called White Eskimo. Harry was White Eskimo’s lead singer, and the band was popular enough to win a competition at their school. After school and on weekends, Harry worked at a local bakery.

When he was 16 years old, Harry competed in the seventh season of the television show The X Factor, singing Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely as his audition song and Oasis’ Stop Crying Your Heart Out in a later round. He was cut before the finals, but in a surprise move, judges Nicole Scherzinger and Simon Cowell put him together with fellow competitors Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik to form a new group act for the remainder of the competition. Performing as One Direction (a name reportedly suggested by Harry), the boys became one of the most popular contenders in the  finals that season. Although they finished in third place, they were immediately signed to Cowell’s Syco music label.

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