Doesn't bother me. They're off my radar.

In general I agree with the OP, however 'Glad You Came' is a fantastic pop record.

what is baffling for a boyband/girlband however is how the general public still don't know their names or anything about them...whereas acts like Spice Girls, Take That, Westlife, Girls Aloud we knew every little bit of trivia about each member by now.

TW are not from XF, maybe you mean JLS...

Two members of The Wanted are former X Factor finalists.

Well they never made the live shows, Tom didn't even make bootcamp I think?

Really? I thought Max got pretty far with another band he was a part of, then got kicked off before the live shows for already having a record deal, but that's about it.
Tom auditioned but didn't get past the very first stages. Ironically I'd say he's got a better voice than all of 1D put together.

In an interview I saw he said he didn't even get past the producers bit, but came face to face with one of the 'funny' acts who got through and was asked to perform in front of the whole audition room. Typical X Factor

Yes the success in America is definately for the managers ability i think that isn't in doubt. Which other band debut release can get covered by Glee and performances on Ellen and Jay Leno without any ground level success beforehand.
The problem is having lived through the 90's none of these boybands can compete with the best of the 90's groups Take That,Backstreet Boys,NSYNC,Five,East 17,Boyzone however in my opinion Blue,Busted and Mcfly were also good boy bands. JLS are hit and miss, 1D are bland and The wanted very lucky boy bands died in the US and now a gap has been realised.
The reason the Brits in the 90's didn't crack the states is the quality was so high and the Brits met it but when the market is crowded with local lads like BSB,NSYNC,Boyz ii Men,98 degrees,Hanson,NKOTB etc etc international imports are always going to come at the back of the que. TW have forced boy bands back to the States and have no competition apart from 1D at the moment there.
I don't buy their laddish behaviour and image also i think in a way it's just as contrived as being sqeaky clean. Good they have had some success but fate (lack of boy bands in particular market) and a good PR/manager who can pull strings other debut acts simply wouldn't have has contributed to their Stateside success.

How can you possibly mention Lily Allen and credibility in the same sentence?

Tbh they all sound the same to me. I can see the cute appeal of 1D to 12 year olds, but musically the current crop of boybands are virtually interchangeable.

I'm not a fan as such, but really like 'All Time Low'. I think maybe it's the strings at the beginning of the record. It's on my iPod anyway

The Wanted clearly have some sort of connections with the US music industry. US radio aren't usually that fast to catch on to new artists, so they must be friends with The Wanted's management or something.

However, at the same time, nobody is being forced to buy Glad You Came. So The Wanted are getting unrealistically good promotion opportunities (such as Glee, etc.), but people are still choosing to buy the song in large numbers, so credit where it's due.

The Wanted have the same manage as Bieber, meaning he pulled strings to get Glee to take notice... It's only a matter of the before he has Bieber promoting their music on his twitter page and doing collaborations with them. That's the way this manufactured pop works, they can't make it on their own... You'll also find alot of artists on twitter have recently been bigging up other artists that have the same management/label.