Netflix’s new series is the latest in a long line of TV shows attempting to talent-spot the next big pop phenomenon. It feels as if the format has been dormant for a while, its role as A&R taken over by social media aeons ago. The glory days of American Idol and The X Factor have passed, and while The Voice trundles steadily on, it has been many years since those on-screen machines churned out the stars they were once capable of creating.
Building the Band aims to modernise the format by bolting on parts of other reality TV shows. Its wannabe singers perform to other singers, sight-unseen, who then decide whether they’d like to be in a band with each other, by pressing a button, and collecting “likes”. It is Love Is Blind meets The Circle meets The Voice, though mostly, it is The Voice, replacing celebrity judges, in the early stages, with peers.
Though he does not appear in the first batch of episodes, Liam Payne features as a guest judge further down the line, alongside Kelly Rowland and Nicole Scherzinger. Payne died, aged 31, last October, and this is his final project. There has been some backlash already, questioning whether the show should be released at all. Some have seen it as a ghoulish enterprise: it is easy to see how watching Payne return to the kind of reality show that made him a star, knowing where and how his story came to an end, would be uncomfortable. The show chooses to frame its release as a tribute. Presenter AJ McLean, of the Backstreet Boys, opens the series with a sincere acknowledgment of Payne’s “deep love for music”, acknowledging that they “never imagined we’d soon be saying goodbye to our friend”.
As a reality show, it is fine, watchable, well-crafted, leaving sufficient cliffhangers to keep you pressing play, though its first four episodes do begin to feel a little drawn-out and repetitive. There are 50 singers, each in their own pods, or “sound booths”. Everyone auditions as an individual. Six bands will be formed, each having between three and five members. Everyone has a maximum of 10 likes, which they can use, Voice-like, by thumping a big button. If a singer gets fewer than five likes, they are out. If they run out of people who have liked them, because they have formed other bands, then they are also out. It is not as mathematically demanding as it sounds.
All of the singers, or at least the ones we see performing, are professional-sounding and highly competent, in that belting-it-out, face-slappingly emotional, semi-strained sort of way. (As a point of contrast, watch old clips of Pop Idol or Pop Stars: The Rivals auditions on YouTube, if only to see how singing has evolved over the last 25 years. It’s the difference between a bicycle and a Maserati.) In these early stages, the critiques are left to the performers themselves, and mostly, they offer these with tact, rather than cruelty. There are none of the old “bad for comic effect” auditions here. The rejections, when they come, are swift, but heartfelt, and McLean is left to deliver the bad news.
Eventually, as those who impress most move into their bands, they perform together for the first time, when they are able to see who they’ve chosen as bandmates. As with Love Is Blind, you can tell whether there is chemistry or not in an instant. It reminds me of the moment when people finally see above the knee on Naked Attraction. They say one thing, but their expressions say something else entirely.
At the end of this first batch of episodes, there are hints of a more ruthless reality show beginning to emerge, not least because the winning band will walk away with half a million dollars. People make promises to each other that they are not sure they can keep. There is a Regina George character, one of those “I’m not afraid of conflict” reality show staples. The bands live and work together, 24/7. The respectful peer-to-peer notes of the sound booths may not be the enduring mood of the series.
I did question why Building the Band would choose to focus on groups, in an era of solo singer dominance, but perhaps it has been designed less for making stars, and more for the dramatic spectacle. Whether that revives the format, or simply shifts it into a more standardised reality TV lane, remains to be seen. Incidentally, I keep calling it “Breaking the Band”, mostly because of the early 00s show Making the Band, but I do wonder if there might be something more to the slip.
Building the Band is on Netflix