A lot of names are thrown out there, worldwide, in regards to who the “original” boy band was: New Edition, New Kids on the Block, Take That, and Boyzone. Hopefully, with their seventh studio album (worldwide) the BackStreet Boys can finally show who the real pioneers are. A lot of other groups have reunited for hyped-marketed tours and merchandise, and outside of Take That’s success (two #1 albums in the UK since their breakup in the mid-nineties), no other has really achieved what they had done before nor stamped pop culture as BSB has. The funny thing about this whole reunion business is that these boys haven’t stopped since they got together back in 1993. Back then there were five of them: cousins Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson, bad-boy AJ McLean, half-Boricua Howie Dorough, and youngster Nick Carter. Lou Pearlman, the creator of ‘NSYNC and O-Town, came up with a marketable idea to milk teen money, and 90s history is…history.
The boys are to date the best selling boy-band of all time with an estimated 200 million albums sold worldwide. Even though ‘NSYNC has the record for the most CDs sold in one week with 2.4 million for No Strings Attached, BSB sits behind them (for a boy band) with 1.6 million in one week for 2000’s Black & Blue, and hold a record for most shipments in one year with 11 million in 1999 alone for Millennium; the album also sold 2.2 million internationally in one week, and went on to sell over 40 million worldwide. That was a decade ago, and things have changed. ‘NSYNC is no longer, Take That, Boyzone and New Kids on the Block have all reunited to different levels of success, but BSB has blown under the radar to become the most consistent, most successful and longest running boy band, to which point, they resemble anything but. The four remaining members (Richardson decided to take some time apart from the band in 2006, thus not participating in 2007’s Unbreakable, or the new release) are all in their last year of twenties (Carter) and in their mid-thirties (Littrell, McLean, Dorough) and have fortified their sound by evolving as a live band more so than a “choreographed”-chest bearing-bubblegum-band, as they once did at the beginning of their career.
With the new album This Is Us coming out on October 6th the band takes on the progress made with Unbreakable and keep on experimenting with their sound.
The new album has them collaborating with Ryan Tedder, Ne-Yo, T-Pain, Lil’ Wayne, Akon and longtime pop force Max Martin. Many think that the sound is more R&B oriented, and maybe it is, but if the last album is to shed some light on their projection, the music is more up-tempo and electronic than it is anything else. The first single “Straight Through My Heart (Soldier Down)” went out to radio today and will see a club-oriented audience. Like the best BSB dance track, “Soldier Down” is to set them as a multi-layered band once again, instead of the ballad kings they have been known for so long. Since Millennium the boys have released first singles with ballads: “I Want it that Way” (1999), “Shape of My Heart” (2000), “Drowning” (2001), “Incomplete” (2005) and “Inconsolable (2007).
Unbreakable, their last effort, was a hidden gem two years ago. For a music lover, lyrics or arrangement, the album is a must. The boys, now men, tackle new subject matters with the same agility and stamina as ever before. Their voices, one of if not the best of their tools, are flawless with complementing each other and not trying to overcompensate over the musicality. The new electro-pop sound, mixed in with their gravitation for heart-wrenching ballads, is the dream of a pop follower. The BackStreet Boys have managed to maintain their celebrity (Unbreakable debuted in the top 10 in the US and stayed at #1 in Japan for two weeks, where their last two albums have done so, and has sold 1.7 million copies worldwide) without being paparazzi-TMZ targets. Now, working back with Max Martin and obviously having a different strategy with the up-tempo lead single, the boys may have something up their sleeves.
The great thing about this band is that it is not about being #1 all the time. They obviously had a taste of that in the past, and nobody will take that away (or get close to their success as far as trailing bands are concerned: there are none). The boys obviously enjoy exploring and making the music, and if you get to see them live, it is highly recommended. The public may remember them as dancing machines from the 90s, but the boys put on a show, a show that is not teen-oriented, but music-oriented. At some time or another, they play the instruments themselves and are both subdued and energetic throughout.