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Can You Be Back If You Never Left?
Apparently, in the case of one boy band, yes
Kevin was never my favorite, anyways (Photo: AngelicLittleKat, via Flickr)
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Yesterday, while I was walking by the Manhattan Center on 34th Street, I noticed a small mob of teenage girls waiting in line to see a concert. No, it wasn’t for the Jonas Brothers. Or Miley Cyrus. Or Justin Bieber (the line would have been a lot longer and noisier if it was for Canda’s finest musical export since Barenaked Ladies).
I didn’t know who it was either—and didn’t want to be the guy who asks, “Who are you waiting for?” because I find it oddly annoying when people do it to me when I’m in line for, say, Lady Gaga—until I saw one girl’s black t-shirt with three words written in glitter and glue: “I Miss Kevin.”
Putting the pieces together, I took out my BlackBerry and to see who was playing that night. And I was right: these girls were waiting for the Backstreet Boys.
Before you ask, “They’re still together?” know that since 1999’s Millennium (14 times platinum in the U.S.), the Backstreet Boys have released four albums: 2000’s Black & Blue, 2005’s Never Gone, 2007’s Unbreakable and last year’s This is Us. They’ve gone from being purely a boy band to being a band made up of boys (to men) who play piano-based pop rock. It’s hard to make fun of them anymore (assuming you ever did in the first place) because there’s nothing objectionable about a song like “Inconsolable”; it’s not so poppy that you immediately dismiss it, but it’s not a stirring enough rock song that you’re ever really intrigued.
But that doesn’t take away from BSB’s amazing success. Their first album, Backstreet Boys, came out overseas in 1996, but didn’t (officially) come out in the U.S. until a year later, in August of 1997. Six singles were released, all of which charted, including “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
Two years later, the album that sums up the late-’90s better than any other: Millennium. That’s not to say it’s better than OK Computer (obviously, it’s not), but think back to how popular BSB was. The NYPD literally had to close down parts of Times Square when the group appeared on TRL. With all due respect to Radiohead, they can’t make millions of people cry just by singing, “You are my fire/The one desire.” (In all fairness, “Ambition makes you look pretty ugly/Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy” isn’t much better.)
Millennium would go on to sell over 40 million copies worldwide and spawn four singles: “I Want It That Way,” “Larger Than Life,” “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” and, my personal favorite, “The One.” It would seem impossible to match an album of that kind of popularity, but in 2000, Black & Blue came out and sold over 5 million copies worldwide in its first week, a record. The album also has what I believe to be the band’s best song: “Shape of My Heart” (not to mention the before-its-time “The Call”).
Then, nothing. Years went by, as did the boy band craze. *NSYNC split, with JT becoming the next Michael Jackson and JC unleashing the cringe-inducing “Some Girls (Dance with Women)” on the world. 98 Degrees also broke up and Nick Lachey married Jessica Simpson. BB Mak…well, they don’t count.
Out of nowhere, though, in 2005, the Backstreet Boys were, well, back, with the oh-so-cleverly named Never Gone. Also gone was the cheesy pop production; they were now replaced with live instruments! Somehow, the album sold over 10 million copies, followed by 1.5 for Unbreakable and around a million for This is Us.
So, yeah, they’re still together, although without Kevin Richardson, who left the band in 2006 and is clearly still being missed, if that girl’s t-shirt is to be believed. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re touring either because, as New Kids on the Block has proven, there’s always a market for nostalgia (in a brilliant move, New Kids and BSB will be touring together sometime early next year). What did surprise me about the line, though, was the audience waiting, at least in terms of age. Many couldn’t have been older than 15 or 16, meaning they were 1 or 2 when BSB’s first album was released.
I’m not questioning the girls in their music taste; after all, I have four BSB albums on my iPod and the entire discography of *NSYNC, whom I’ve always preferred over their Orlando rivals. Or even belittling them, like when people older than I am ask me what kind of music I like, and when I answer the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, their response is a mixture of amusement and “how do you even know these bands? You weren’t alive then!” As if only they have heard of the Beatles (people who grew up in the ‘60s are especially guilty of this).
What I’m generally interested in is how someone that young learned of the group (when was the last time you heard “It’s Gotta Be You” on the radio?) and why they’re willing to spend money on a teen sensation who isn’t Bieber (playing the Prudential Center in Jersey tomorrow, FYI) or Katy Perry. If it hadn’t been creepy of me to ask an underage girl in booty shorts a question, I would have asked just that. If only I had a nickel every time I said that…