Boy band of the moment One Direction holds on to summer for one last gasp in their new video "Live While We're Young" which MTV sees as fitting into a long tradition:
See, the history of boy bands is filled with clips like this, where we find the handsome guys messing around to maximum effect. The Beatles and the Monkees made videos like this (back then, said hijinks were usually played at twice the normal speed, for hilarity's sake), and so did the New Kids on the Block, 'NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. It is practically a time-honored tradition, in a genre where time is almost certainly the enemy. And I'd like to think that the guys in One Direction are smart enough to realize this, which is why they seem to be playing up the sheer ridiculousness of the concept. When they are singing into giant inflatable microphones or splashing around in a pond, they're doing it knowingly, and it's all they can do to hide the wry smiles from their perfectly boned faces. You've got to admire them for that.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
