"If history is written by winners," author Maria Sherman says, "music history is written by rock critics, and they don't typically get along with boy bands." For reasons that she explores in her new book, Larger Than Life: A History Of Boy Bands From NKOTB To BTS , Sherman says boy bands don't get the same respect as other music acts, especially their rock peers. "I do think a lot of it is this internalized perception of what is "good," and that's the rock songwriter — and that's not what boy bands are," she says. "I tackle the idea of Beatlemania quite a bit in the book because one of the main characteristics of boy bands are that they have this frenzied — but I think really lovely — fanaticism about them. But if you call the Beatles a boy band, people get really dismissive about it. They really don't enjoy that, I've found." Sherman was already a music critic when she fell in love with One Direction, and she says that the band's songs helped her appreciate new ways of thinking about