When boy bands hit the buffers, record companies looked for a fresh type of group - and came up with guitar-wielding pop stars, according to Simon Warner, lecturer in pop music at Leeds University.

BBC: NEWS | Entertainment | How Busted rocked the pop scene

Both North and South and 5ive are derivatives of the Spice Girls: whereas most recent boy bands have been uniform boys in uniform clothes, these two bands, like the Spice Girls, are made up of carefully distinguished individuals.

ECONOMIST: The last big thing

On its first two albums, Sweden's Shout Out Louds followed a similar formula by updating the dour post-punk of bands like The Cure and Joy Division with ragged guitar riffs, clean production and girl-boy vocal harmonies from singers Bebban Stenborg and Adam Olenius.

NPR: Shout Out Louds: Perfectly Pensive