You don’t have to be watching a reality singing competition to know the beats: A person gets onstage in front of celebrity judges, they perform, the judges press a button or turn around in their chairs or nod or say something insane, the contestant advances, and a convoluted system of live voting determines a winner lucky enough for a record deal. Sometimes the judges have teams of contestants. Sometimes there are special guest judges and performers. Sometimes an act is a magician — but it’s all the same. The people who won American Idol and X Factor and The Voice used to have some gas in the can, but can anyone confidently name a winner after, say, 2010? Despite shifting networks and stunt-casting judges, the genre lies in the wreckage of itself. You’re more likely to get an album off Instagram Reels than a season of television.
Perhaps that’s why Netflix’s Building the Band — a Making the Band x Love Is Blind mashup that premiered on July 9 — feels so revolutionary. From the moment the show begins, everything is different than what we’ve ever seen from a singing competition. The show puts 50 singers in little neon shipping containers (stay with me), where they listen to the other contestants’ auditions. They evaluate the voices of their peers and smash a button to “like” singers who they might want to be in a band with. Their point person — and the show’s host — is Backstreet Boy AJ McLean, who tallies likes early on and becomes a guardian angel in the show’s back half. By his side is recent Tony Award winner and former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, who serves as both a judge and mentor and is present in rehearsals as well as at the performances. The show doesn’t have a conventional structure because they’re not approaching it conventionally. The groups don’t perform in front of an audience until more than halfway through the series.
Building the Band putting so much faith in its contestants to determine their fate keeps it compelling from the jump — a welcome change of pace from the days of contrived band-building in the late ’90s and aughts. The bands come together not through producer- or judge-influenced guidance but through actual conversations between the singers. With little to go off besides voice, the contestants have to ask one another real questions about what kind of musical stylings they want to sing, their influences, and their personalities. They’re strategizing together in real time because no one can win by themselves. Getting the requisite number of likes isn’t enough to advance in the competition: These contestants also have to make themselves amenable to one another. They are proving their worth as peers rather than going at it solo. They want to know if these are people they can work and sing with, not just be marketed alongside. McLean and Scherzinger are gentle and encouraging; when they have criticism, it’s not the Simon Cowell brand of sharp, cutting zingers. Mostly the show wants to see these singers working together. Where there’s a common thread of criticism from the other judges, Kelly Rowland and the late Liam Payne, it’s that the bands aren’t cohesive enough — individuals are fighting for attention or not listening or not trusting what they can all bring to a unit.
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Rather than these singers existing in a vacuum — though a few may be styled like notable solo artists, such as Harry Styles and Ariana Grande — they have to consider their place among their peers. “His tone is so unique,” one contestant says of Donzell, a singer with a natural rasp in his voice. “I don’t know how it fits in a band.” Contestant Alison says she wants to be the Beyoncé of her group, but can she find two other women content to be her Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams? There’s also a consideration of the industry in which these performers would exist. There are many successful models for boy bands (One Direction, *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys) and girl groups (Fifth Harmony, the Pussycat Dolls, Destiny’s Child) but far fewer for what the contestants call a “mixed band,” à la Pentatonix (sorry to invoke) or DNCE (a side project of boy-bander Joe Jonas). In turn, contestants listen as best they can for gender, which is not always easy to do.
Beyond its reinvention of the form, it’s just plain fun to watch these singers figure out on their own who fits where in each equation. They even get to name their bands: Many opt for silly throwback puns like “3Quency” or “Soulidified.” The singers are charismatic, not only as individuals but as groups. SZN4 — the show’s only mixed-gender band — has the type of chemistry some artists could only dream of; they uplift one another in the face of doubt. It’s a new experience to watch these groups cheer one another on rather than tear one another down. We’re far more keen to see performers work out their bands’ kinks than flirt or take shots at competitors. There’s also just a ton of music: With a limited number of singers to start, we get to see many of these auditions play out in full.
On July 23, Netflix will release the final three episodes and reveal the winning band. Could Building the Band have its American Idol season-one Justin-versus-Kelly showdown? The show has yet to indulge in rivalries like this; front runners emerge through moments of real-time success rather than burgeoning viewer-influenced fandoms. The winning band will win mostly because its members knew how to work together, not because they appeased the public. In an industry that never seems to get any easier, those bandmates will be grateful they chose one another.
