r/LetsTalkMusic • u/Psychological-Mess95 • 4d ago
Would a Supergroup of Established Solo Artists Work Musically?
What if some of the biggest male artists across different generations and genres came together to form a boy band?
Imagine a supergroup featuring Jungkook, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, and The Kid LAROI, with potential additions like The Weeknd, Chris Brown, or even Kendrick Lamar as the main rapper.
The idea would be to combine artists whose talents transcend different eras of music. Between their vocals, songwriting, dancing, stage presence, and musical versatility, this group could potentially create something incredible.
The biggest challenge would probably be distributing lines and balancing so many talented singers. Some additional role diversity might help, but each artist already brings something different to the table.
Jungkook — The All-Rounder
Jungkook brings powerful vocals, impressive dancing, and years of experience performing in BTS. His experience working within a group would be especially valuable when it comes to choreography, teamwork, and balancing individual performances. He could help bring everyone together.
Bruno Mars — The Veteran Performer
Bruno brings incredible versatility, experience, and stage presence. His ability to move between pop, funk, R&B, and soul would give the group plenty of musical flexibility. He's also an excellent live performer and songwriter who could contribute to the group's longevity.
Justin Bieber — The Pop and R&B Specialist
Bieber has an impressive track record spanning multiple eras of pop music. Beyond his recognizable voice and massive popularity, he brings songwriting experience, musical instincts, and an understanding of how to create successful records. His versatility would make him another valuable member.
The Kid LAROI — The Younger Perspective
LAROI brings a different energy through his blend of melodic rap, pop, and R&B. His ability to experiment with different sounds could help the group explore multiple musical directions.
His emotional delivery and distinctive vocal style would complement the other members. While he might not be as dance-oriented as Jungkook or Bruno, his strengths as a vocalist and songwriter could make him an important part of the lineup.
Kendrick Lamar — The Main Rapper
Kendrick would bring a strong rap presence to every track, adding another dimension to the group's sound. His incredible lyricism, storytelling, flow, and songwriting abilities would make him an essential member of the lineup.
His versatility would allow him to complement the group's pop and R&B influences while bringing his own unique style. He could also work alongside The Kid LAROI on rap sections, giving the group even more musical flexibility.
The Weeknd or Chris Brown — Alternative Additions
Both could fit into the lineup for different reasons.
The Weeknd would bring his distinctive vocals, atmospheric R&B sound, and ability to create memorable melodies.
Chris Brown would contribute strong R&B vocals, dancing, and performance experience, adding another member capable of handling demanding choreography.
The Big Question
Would a supergroup with this much individual talent actually work?
With so many established solo artists, balancing creative control, musical direction, and line distribution could be difficult. However, their different strengths could also lead to some incredible collaborations.
Who would make your ideal lineup? Would you keep these artists, replace anyone, or add someone who brings a completely different skill set?
And most importantly, what kind of music should a group like this make?
4
u/InternalPiccolo7201 4d ago
I don't know if a vocals only supergroup would work. The environment is almost totally fabricated at present and would only appear more so. Journeyman songwriters jobbing it for singers who never see each other, except maybe at the video shoot. Maybe. Any character an individual would bring would be sanitized or offset in every song. It would be the most expensive tour in history.
-1
u/Psychological-Mess95 4d ago
Yeah most definitely am expensive tour and I thought that was the lower weak point of mostly all vocalists, they're multi talented enough to where I think they could make it work. I could be wrong though
2
u/Hispandinavian 4d ago
Mick Jagger kind of had this idea for the Superheavy project. It was interesting idea, but Im not sure it worked musically. And it also appeared to be a blatant attempt for Mick to look relevant..i.e. not the best look.
2
2
u/MediocreDesigner88 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think the inherent limitation is how many focal points you can have. You basically only want to hear two singers at a time, and a third separately can spice it up. You could say the same thing about rappers, 2 main rappers and 1 extra. If you add all that together you could maybe have 6 vocalists on a song, but that’s stretching it and would probably feel exhausting after a couple songs. More than that would just feel really disjointed, and honestly most of the time we only want to hear 1 or 2 lead vocalists.
Furthermore, a song is generally a narrative. And having so many narrators on one song is not satisfying and will probably end up as slop soup.
If you think they don’t need to all be on the same song, you’re just talking about what is already happening, where they are solo artists who collaborate with each other in chunks.
1
u/Psychological-Mess95 4d ago
Yeah that's fair not too well versed on groups thought they could shake it up enough to make it work they're all talented enough i feel like.
1
u/ShocksShocksShocks 3d ago
This is funny, since if you listen to idol, there's groups with like 40+ vocalists (Onyanko Club and AKB48 are two obvious examples). These groups are/were insanely successful as well. That's only in the pop music context too, as choirs have been a thing for hundreds of years and have tons of vocalists on any given song.
1
u/MediocreDesigner88 3d ago
Yeah, but these aren’t super groups with distinct soloists. Like groups whose voices all blend together (“boy bands”/“girl bands”) have always been a thing and you don’t necessarily know or care who is singing each part. But having Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber and Kendrick Lamar weaving in and out of a verse would be quite different.
1
u/ShocksShocksShocks 3d ago
There are super groups made up of distinct soloists with tons of members, look up All Star Tribute on Discogs.
Also, speak for yourself, a lot of idol group stuff switches a lead central vocal, then has group singing sections. Another real world example is anison, you can have like five singers on a song with their own segments, and this has been a thing for decades, it works fine, I'm sure American artists could figure it out as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfiU6b8LZb0
1
u/MisterMarcus 2d ago
Musically it would probably be fine, the problem would be personalities and ego.
The best chance of success would be a group of established artists who'd achieved plenty and didn't need to prove anything more to anybody, and/or were good friends who'd play together just for the enjoyment. Someone above mentioned the Travelling Wilburys and those criteria seemed to apply to them.
1
u/ShocksShocksShocks 3d ago
Way too long of a post, especially since I don't know the music of any of those artists that you list. Super groups have been done before, ones with super stars though were those like, now pretty hokey "love and peace for the world" type songs, you can look up All Star Tribute on Discogs for one. Though these tended to be to try to like, benefit the world or raise awareness or whatever, not as normal music.
Normal music ones do absolutely exist, just usually not on the scale of fame you're talking about. Sometimes they get a good following, but more often than not it's a one off album that usually only more deeper fans ever listen to (like the band Risil).
8
u/Connect-Camp1115 4d ago
It’s already been done, except it was not a boy band, it was a man band and they called it the Traveling Wilburys.