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12:23 AM
April 19th 2014 has marked 21 years for the Backstreet Boys. It's amazing to think it has been that long for them making everyone dance with their teen pop friendly songs and ballads that could make all genders in and out of the binary's panties excited. 'NSYNC and 98 Degrees do not even count in my book. Kevin, Nick, Howie, A.J., and Brian always have had more soul whereas the other boys had the catchy radio sound down. To me, the early teen pop songs have always seemed a little awkward but their best and underrated period started beginning with "Black and Blue" and ending with my absolute favorite album of theirs, "Never Gone." So I suppose you could rename this post "The Underrated Songs of the Backstreet Boys, or, Why "Never Gone" is B's Favorite Album."
Click on the song title to get the video!
from Black and Blue (2000)
I often consider making a playlist for my own ideal wedding song and this one always makes the list! Everything about this song feels more like Backstreet Men, which personally, is my favorite theme in the later half of their career considering the shift in song narrative. Where on their debut album they were all about "getting down" or advising women to get a "bad boy," Backstreet grew up and the songs progressively become autobiographical once they have helmed their songwriting fully. This is A.J.'s contribution and the shocking lyrics to all of their younger and pissed off fans, "Yes I will/give you everything you need/and someday start a family with you." And in my memory, I believe this is first song in the catalog to ever mention marriage and making babies in a family way.
from Never Gone (2005)
If someone had a gun to my head and demanded for me to make a choice of what is my favorite Backstreet Boys song, I would have choose "Poster Girl." Why? Because it's a drastically different pop song than what the boys have done before! Songwriters Billy Mann, Rasmus Bahncke, and Rene Tromberg managed to scour up a song about the perfect reckless woman out for fun. Considering this song may or may not have been inspired by Nick Carter's relationship with Paris Hilton, it's not too surprising to hear the desperation when A.J. belts out "let me be your guarantee." This is definitely a drastically different pop song that just works!
from Black and Blue (2000)
If you are a huge Backstreet nerd, you know better than anyone that Howie Dorough, in all his lovely Latino tenor vibrato, is sorely underused. But in this wonderful stripped down finale to "Black and Blue," he managed to finally get my attention in this wonderful ballad no doubt dedicated to his long time girlfriend and now wife Leigh Boniello.
from The Hits: Chapter 1 (2001)
The first time I heard "Drowning" I immediately thought that there was something really different about this song. Perhaps it was a song that should have been on "Black and Blue" right next to other passionate filled songs like "Shape of my Heart" and all the wedding playlist tracks at the end of the album. It was heavy yet pop-friendly all at once... and the video in the title may help with that. Only for Kevin Richardson will I get all "Helloooooo nurse" over and especially in this video. You do not want to see the looks I was giving my computer screen while watching this.
from Unbreakable (2007)
Although minus my favorite Backstreet Man, the rest of them managed to pull out a decent single out of an otherwise monotonous album that was "Unbreakable" (although this album also made a gratuitous mark in the boys to men shift). Yes it was rather atypical of the Backstreet song, Virgin Media reviewed the single as "a textbook Backstreet Boys song." That maybe true, but, it is a textbook Backstreet Boys song done right!
from The Princess Diaries Soundtrack (2001)
Another fantastic and very underrated Dorough-written song involving that lovely yet breathy falsetto of his but the marketing of this song has been less than ideal. A song well suited for the Anne Hathaway movie "The Princess Diaries," "What Makes You Different" is a song you just want a guy to sing to a girl that involves something more than just immediate "oh baby" lust. It's sweet and a feel-good, and a feel-good pop song has become rare these 13 years later. (13 years??!!)
from Never Gone (2005)
A power ballad most often cited by the boys as another song to put into the fan playlist right next to "Time," "Larger than Life" and "The Perfect Fan," "Incomplete" is another text book Backstreet Boys song that begins a rather different sounding boy band album. But if the bridge is any indication "I don't want to make you face this world alone" even this song has something of a different flavor than any of their other power ballads yet attaining much of that Backstreet harmony that sets them apart from the other 90s boy band groups (they need not be named).
from Never Gone (2005)
This would be the second song right after "Poster Girl" I would cite in my top 5 favorite Backstreet Boys songs of life. A little jazzy and slinky with a lot of A.J. just being that fantastic sex God that he is in those little interjections he does so well, "My Beautiful Woman" is just perfect... and different! If there was one song to study what makes the Backstreet Boys harmonies Backstreetish, this would be it. And a little electrical guitar never ever hurts.
from Unbreakable (2007)
Sometimes all it takes is a fantastically written chorus to make a song memorable. While I cannot think of the first note or chord that starts off "Helpless When She Smiles," I do think the second single off of "Unbreakable" is probably the most underrated single of the boys who made their shift to men in a rather discontented album that "Unbreakable" was. I am simply fascinated in how Brett James, Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo, and Trey Verges strung one word after another with: "I'm a house of cards/in a hurricane/a reckless fire/in the pouring rain/She cuts me and the pain/is all I feel..." And it's not that often you get a song from these boys that shifts into talking about a tangible "she" and I am all for something that breaks that boy band song formula.
from Never Gone (2005)
For those who are watching the video and reading this after, yeah guys, I KNOW! Rock is a genre you don't typically find in a boy band song and somehow it works in this Max Martin and Lukasz Gottwald composition. But then Max has stuck with the guys for a very long time so he more than anyone would know what works for their harmonies. And with the slight vocal filter over A.J. and Kevin's solo of "I just want you to know/that since I lost you, I lost myself" and that underlying rock beat, this song manages to encapsulate the Backstreet Boys' passionate strength that's typically reserved for their power ballads.
from Backstreet Boys (1996)
Maybe it's Kevin Richardson's chocolatey voice in the intro (but oh, it's nothing compared when he croons in "Lose It All" "don't change a thing, perfect as you are." OK Kevin! I'll do anything you say!!) or maybe it's their harmonies that rival the cheesy as hell 90s synthesizers but dear God, there's a sensual power in this song that stands out against all of those overrated radio hits.
from Millennium (1999)
In my personal opinion, "Millennium" was an overhyped and overrated album but tiny gems like "Back to Your Heart" and an earnest "I Need You Tonight" saved the album from radio death unlike their debut album. While overshadowed by the bigger singles, "Back to Your Heart" is a sweet and simple ballad Kevin Richardson co-wrote with Gary Baker and Jason Blume almost a precursor of sweeter and more powerful songs to come from the Richardson and Baker lyrical partnership.
from Never Gone (2005)
Typically the Backstreet Boys have always been about the stages of being in love (whether with the adoration of their fans/mothers/girlfriends-wives) or lust but it's not common to have a song that softly references relationships for a boy band. This song changed all of that which includes fantastic lyrics composed by Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik. One verse always captures me (next to Howie crooning up the scales about her "beautiful smile") when Nick sings "Sent a message to a GI in the desert/Said thank you man for bringing another dawn/Back here it's her and me and we're having our first baby/He's out there taking them on." Gratitude like that is not a typical theme in a boy band song and I love that Ondrasik did this! And the way the boys sing this with just as much power ballad gusto as their bigger teen pop hits just makes this fan very happy.
from Black and Blue (2000)
It's truly astonishing that only on their THIRD American released album all five guys were able to pool together enough animosity and presumption to write this song. Granted that might be a harsh review in the long run, but damn the song is catchy. Inopportune time for them to write this song before gaining wives, kids and a little more experience in the music industry? Maybe a little but it doesn't stop "Time" from swiveling the album down into its wedding music territory that ends a fantastic yet spotty album.
from Never Gone (2005)
The closer to the similarly titled album is a triple punch to the genitals. Written by Kevin Richardson with some help by Gary Baker and Steve Diamond, "Never Gone" is a memorial for his father who passed away of colon cancer a few years before. The song offers that powerful ballad punch once the chorus begins to be repeated that no parent that dies is ever gone. It's bittersweet and beautiful full of insistence and a perfect album closer to a strange and wonderful album.
from Millennium (1999)
Nick Carter has never been one of my top favorite Backstreet Boys... or Men. My order goes: Kevin (obviously), A.J., Howie, Nick and Brian. But one of Nick's few solo attempts, "I Need You Tonight" is indeed a fantastic ballad on a somewhat showy second album despite a few pitch glitches he manages to cover up with pretty growls to accentuate his want for the woman he is singing to. But what really made this song for me back in the day (Goddess, saying that makes me feel old), was this amazing performance he gave to this song on a pay-per-view concert. Do you remember it? In the long run, fantastic song almost in the same vein as Bryan Adams's "Everything I Do (I Do it For You)" but Nick as the youngest obviously still had some vocal growth to do.
from Backstreet Boys (1996)
I remember always being fascinated by "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" as a pre-teen, considering it to be a sweet breezy calm before a very embarrassing storm known as "If You Want to be a Good Girl (Get Yourself a Bad Boy)." Now my opinion on the song is very much a genesis to songs like "My Beautiful Woman" and others which prove their soulful sound has always been placed on the backburner. Sure the musical arrangement are somewhat embarrassing with 90s synthesizers but their harmonies were air-tight and almost ethereal. As for "If You Want to be a Good Girl"... yeah, it's still embarrassing.
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