Netflix’s ‘Building the Band’ Has Revealed a Different Kind of Social Experiment, After the Finale

This summer, the Netflix reality show, Building the Band, had me glued to my TV screen for ten episodes straight. When I saw the trailer for it, my mind immediately envisioned it as a combination of two shows I thoroughly enjoy: Love is Blind and Making the Band (a great show, despite being tarnished by the man who created it).

For those who haven’t seen it, the premise is pretty straightforward. 50 singers come together and “audition” for one another without being able to see the others. If people like what they hear and want to be in a band with the person auditioning, they hit the button in their booth. Five people must hit their buttons in order for the person auditioning to move forward in the competition. Once people start hitting their buttons, they get to have conversations with the people they pressed their button for to decide if they want to form a band with them. Each band must be no less than 3 people and no more than 5 people and in the end, only six bands can make it out of the booths and compete together in the competition. This means that out of 50 people, only between 18 and 30 people will move forward. It’s an extremely interesting concept, being that the only thing these singers have to go off of is voice and conversation because they cannot see what the others look like until they have locked in their decision to form a band together.

It's the ultimate music industry social experiment to see how well bands can form when optics and company control are removed from the equation. With five of the six bands still together over a year after their formation, I think it’s safe to say that the experiment was successful on that front. But once the bands could see one another, it was inevitable that optics would play a role in how they navigated the competition, but how has it continued after leaving the show?

The Band That Aimed to Stand Out

On the show, Midnight Til Morning stood out, but not for the reasons they may have thought. As a four member boy band with 2 members being from the United States (Zach Newbould and Shane Appell) and the other two being from Australia (Connor Smith and Mason Watts), the group formed with a blend of voices from soft to raspy to loud and belty. The group went on to have several performances highlighting their pop-rock style and their aversion to choreography. The band members all unanimously agreed when working with choreographers, Scott and Brian Nicholson, that they would not be dancing, making them a boy band more similar to One Direction than *NSYNC. The choreographers then advised them that just because they would not be dancing, it did not mean that choreography would not be necessary.

The two brothers advised them that choreography is more than dancing and is about how they move about the stage and connect with one another to appear more cohesive. In their first performance — a cover of Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes” — the group did very little with this information, but eventually started to incorporate this advice into later performances when the judges gave them critiques about their stage presence.

Ultimately, MTM came in fourth place on the show, but they did not leave without letting the other contestants and viewers know how they felt about the other boy band in the competition, Soulidified.

MTM vs. Soulidified: A New Age Boy Band Beef

Soulidified, consisting of four members (Shade Jenifer, Bradley Rittman, Malik Heard, and Landon Boyce), came in third place in the competition and won people over with their primarily R&B style (with sprinkles of pop here and there), their tight harmonies, and their use of choreography.

MTM member, Connor, had the most to say about the group. After Soulidified’s performance of “U Remind Me” by Usher (which had everyone up and moving), Connor gave his opinion: “I’m gonna be straight, I expected them to do something like that. It was a great performance, but I’ve seen that before… I feel like this whole competition is about us getting out of comfort zones and… I don’t know.” This comment was, notably, said after show mentor, Nichole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls, stated that she had “never seen a band like this before” in regards to Soulidified.

These sort of shady comments downplaying the appeal, talent, and originality of Soulidified did not just stop after the show ended, unfortunately. On a TikTok live that MTM did on August 4, the members asked their viewers to send them recommendations for acts that would be good openers for their upcoming tour. Shane then made the statement that “Soulidified would be a great opener” to which all of the guys chuckled at and then Mason responded to by saying “we’re looking for someone who’s popping off.” Shane then covered his mouth jokingly and said “shade.” Mason then claimed he was joking, but with all of the members’ initial reaction to the suggestion being one of amusement, it’s hard to believe that there wasn’t some truth to it.

And during an interview that MTM did on the web show, Taller Toddlers, on November 12, Shane commented about why he felt that MTM did not make it very far on Building the Band. He stated that one of the reasons could be attributed to how each member’s voice is so different from one another, making it difficult for them to figure out how to blend. He then expressed that “some of the other bands’ voices might have sounded very similar. So when they sang together, they blended very well. So it took us awhile to be, like, four independent artists, with completely different voices to also blend together.”

Giving Shane the benefit of the doubt, I do not believe this statement was intended to be negative towards the other bands in any way, but I do think it greatly lacks accountability and once again downplays the talent, appeal, and work that the other groups put into their performances on the show. MTM could have gone far on the show, being that they were the only pop-rock act and had a vibe reminiscent to popular boy bands like One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer, but they didn’t always apply the judges’ critiques well, they struggled to work together as well as the other bands, and at least one of their members (namely, Connor) lacked focus. These were things that the other groups that made it farther on the show excelled at.

I also find it ironic that through this comment, Shane is essentially explaining how MTM is vocally diverse, while implying that the other bands on the show are lacking vocal diversity, when MTM is objectively the least diverse band to come from the show. Yes, in terms of vocal quality and ability, they are diverse, but so were nearly every other band on the show. In fact, it was something that was noted by the judges when talking about some of the other groups, particularly SZN4 (who came in second place).

And these comments that consistently diminish the other groups in some way have not just been made by the band themselves, but also by some fans of the show. On the Building the Band sub-Reddit, one user made this statement:

“[MTM] is the only marketable band in the series. I mean, One Direction were not great singers either, but they were marketable and had appeal… People saying [MTM are] a generic boy band and their style is generic, well the real world won’t care about that… They’re all good looking, have the charisma, Australian flavour for appeal, and are heterosexual men.”

In the same post, this user went on to say this about Soulidified:

“Soulidified would do well but one of them is visibly gay and that may not go well for the labels, especially if they’re hoping to market them as an R&B group appealing to female fans. A gay singer can succeed in R&B as a solo artist but not as a group with heterosexual bandmates.”

The Illusion of Marketability

These comments, made by both MTM and fans, implying that MTM is somehow more unique or “marketable” than a band like Soulidified, represent a much larger problem in the music industry: one where whiteness and straightness are the standard.

By pushing this narrative that a band like Soulidified, with half of their members being Black, at least one being gay, and them primarily making music that is considered a “Black genre” by the public, not being marketable, it reinforces decades, even centuries, of musical bias toward Black and queer art forms. We’ve seen this same sort of rhetoric with how a white group like New Kids on the Block was created to be the more commercially marketable version of the Black group, New Edition, or how Elvis Presley would take music created by Black artists, and simply because he was white, it would suddenly become more palatable to larger, white audiences. Or even through the “Disco Sucks” movement of the late 70s and 80s, where rock (a primarily white genre at the time) was seen as a more artistic genre than disco (which was spearheaded by Black, Latino, and queer communities).

Also, the idea of dancing as a boy band, being something inherently unoriginal and typical, downplays the amount of creativity and effort that goes into choreographing a dance and the practice and skill that is required to dance and sing at the same time. It also pushes this idea that somehow, effort is uncool or corny.

Fans vs. Labels: Who Decides?

Despite this narrative that MTM is more marketable than a group like Soulidified, through so many different metrics, fans are showing that this is not true. Across nearly all social media platforms that both bands share, Soulidified has more followers than MTM. Soulidifed is also on tour with 3quency (the winners of the season), where video evidence shows fans singing and doing choreography to their songs — most of which have not even been released yet, all while selling out shows in multiple cities. Soulidified has also amassed over a million streams on their only released single so far. And they have done all of this without the backing of a label, something that MTM has the luxury of.

As of now, MTM is one of the only groups from the show that is publicly signed to a label, meaning that they have the money and resources of a label supporting them. This can be seen as a major reason why, so far, they are one of the only groups from the show to have released a full-length EP, while most of the other bands have only released a single or two.

But despite the label backing that they have that many of the other groups don’t, the other groups are still accomplishing much of what MTM is, but as independent artists. The girl group, Siren Society (who placed fifth on the show), has also released an EP. Soulidified has also dropped music and is currently on their Bandemonium Tour with 3quency. And SZN4 has released a single and is scheduled to start their US & Canada tour in February of 2026. So yes, in terms of label appeal, MTM can be seen as more marketable, but the labels aren’t the ones buying tour tickets, streaming music, or purchasing merch.

The evidence is clear. People in 2025 want a group like Soulidified. They want the dancing, they want the coordinated outfits, they want the R&B, the diversity, the effort, and yes… even the “visibly gay” member. But record labels still want the whiteness, the straightness, the pop-rock singing, the casually strolling around the stage instead of hitting a two-step. Is one inherently better than the other? No. But does what the industry wants represent what the average consumer wants in this day and age? I’d say no to that as well.

And as for Midnight Til Morning, I think they have great music, and I don’t necessarily think they are bad people, but at best, they are unaware of the privilege they benefit from in this industry. And at worst, their comments carry the weight of racial (and possibly, sexual) bias.

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