Boybands, The Long Gone Era

Okay, I have a confession to make... I love boybands. I love boyband music, especially those by the Backstreet Boys, affectionately known as BSB => I don't know what attracted me to them but one thing's for sure. It has something to do the way their music always manage to soothe me even I'm having my mood swings. The thing I mean is that boyband music always have that feel good factor that makes me long to listen to them over and over again. The truth is, I never get sick of their music and throughout the years, I've only grown to love their songs more and more and to the extent that I actually bought 2 cds from amazon.com(I lost my CDs ages ago=<). Yes, shocking but true. My enthusiasm for them was resurrected when I stumbled upon some of their video clips on You Tube. And that was when I recalled what drew me to their music up till now. There's this variety in their albums that many artistes lack. Sometimes a melancholic tune (Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely), sometimes a bit of rock (Larger Than Life), sometimes a romantic touch (No One Else Comes Close), sometimes a hint of rap (this is usually found in the bridge of some of their songs, sung by AJ) and most importantly, the pop element is always present. However, in their recent album, Never Gone, this pop element has been replaced by guitar driven pop/rock sound, which, not to say I dislike but I found it not as good as their previous sound. Many a times, I wish that BSB would make a comeback with their trademark pop sound and once again, like in the good old days wow everyone and make the whole world fall head over heels in love with them again.
I know, I know, I sound like our parents who always reminisce about the golden oldies, but I can't help it, I love them to much!!! Yet, I know that no matter what, that will be a near impossible feat, because the younger generation (not that I'm saying that I'm old... Oh, no, it's just that I'm like more mature than old. Hehe^-^) usually prefer those from their own age group (How Take That managed such a successful comeback I wonder). Sigh... My favourite album of all time is Millenium. Honestly speaking, I think that is their best album and it has been going downhill ever since then. Sigh again... Don't get me wrong. I still think that all of their albums are out of this world, it's just that that album was the best of the best, you get my drift? Haha ;-)
Okay, before I drone on and on about my crazy obsession with them, let me bring to all of you guys a brief ride down memory lane about my fav boyband of all time, the Backstreet Boys => (with a little help from Wikipedia, of course ^_~)

Publicity shot of BSB

With elmo, cute !!!

The members

Nick Carter

Howie Dorough












Alexander James McLean

Kevin Richardson

Brian Littrell

The history

Lou Pearlman, an aviation entrepreneur based in Florida, was inspired by the success of the New Kids on the Block in the 1980s to create his own clean-cut band. After a series of auditions in 1992 and 1993, he recruited Nick Carter (at 12, the band's youngest member), Howie Dorough, 19, Alexander James McLean, 14 and following the departure of two members - Sam Licata (later performing as Phoenix Stone) and Charles Edwards - Kevin Richardson came aboard in March 1993, who was 21. The group took its final shape on April 19, 1993, when Brian Littrell, cousin of Richardson, joined the group after a phone audition.

The band was spotted in Cleveland, Ohio by an executive from Jive Records in February 1994. By June, they were recording their first single; an urban pop song by writer/producer Denniz PoP called "We've Got It Goin' On." The band did not receive wide acclaim in the States but topped the charts in Europe and Canada.

By 1997, pop music was returning to the forefront in United States, with the likes of the Spice Girls. Jive and Pearlman decided to bring the boys back to their home country after 8.5 million discs had been sold worldwide. They began recording their second album, Backstreet's Back, releasing "Quit Playing Games with My Heart" in August, coinciding with the release of their second international album, the band released a self-titled album in the US which collected songs from both international albums. They hit big on the U.S. charts, and debuting at #1 in Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Finland and Austria. The two albums sold over 28 million copies worldwide (14 million copies in the U.S

.). In December 1997, the band embarked on a 60-city, 20-country tour.

On May 18, 1999, the Backstreet Boys released the album Millennium, which sold over 1.13 million units in its first week, setting, at the time, a record for first week sales. The album also recorded the most sales for an album's second and third weeks. Rolling Stone reports that sales might have been bigger if some stores had not run out of CDs. In addition to receiving gold and platinum awards in 45 countries, the band's sophomore album was nominated for 5 Grammy Award's including Album of the Year. In August, the Backstreet Boys sold out a 39-city tour in less than a day, selling over 765,000 tickets in a matter of hours, prompting additional shows in many markets and shattering a number of box-office records selling out all 53 concert dates of their Into The Millennium Tour which kicked off in September. The tour drew over 2 million fans, breaking the record for largest indoor audience.

In November 2000, the group released a new album, Black & Blue and to promote the release of Black & Blue, the boys traveled around the world in 100 hours to Sweden, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and the US; 55 of the hours were spent traveling and 45 were spent making public appearances. The album debuted with 1.6 million units sold in the first week in America, making the band the first ever artist to have two albums sell a million or more copies in the first week. In November 2000, Black & Blue had sold more than five million copies worldwide in its initial week, setting a new first-week record in international sales. Globally, Black & Blue — whose 13-song selection features six songs co-written by members of the g

roup, including two written by all five Backstreet Boys — achieved platinum status in over 30 countries and gold certification in 10 regions around the world during its first week of release. In 2001, the Backstreet Boys kicked off the 1st leg of their "2001 Black & Blue World Tour", in which they were to perform on five continents within the span of 100 hours. The full tour earned US$350 million in ticket sales, placing the tour among the highest-grossing ever.

In October 2001, the boys released The Hits: Chapter One, a disc of their greatest hits. The record sold over 6 million copies worldwide, and yielded an international top 10 hit "Drowning". After a three-year hiatus (2002-2004), their new hit single, "Incomplete", was released to radio stations on March 28, 2005 and quickly became the #1 most requested song in top markets in both U.S. and overseas. The drastic style change drew negative criticism from magazines such as Rolling Stone (who gave the album only 1 star

) and many long time fans, who felt they should have stayed true to their trademark pop sound. On June 14, 2005, the Backstreet Boys released their comeback album Never Gone, which they spent more than a year recording. The album debuted at #3 on the U.S. chart with substantial first week sales of 291,000 copies, including #1 debuts in Japan, Pakistan, Germany, India, Chile, Brazil, Australia, and Korea.

On June 23, 2006 the band issued a statement regarding Kevin Richardson's intention to leave the Backstreet Boys. The reason stated was his wish to pursue other interests that he could not while in the group. The rest of the Backstreet Boys wished him the best of luck in the future and they have no plans on replacing him. They noted that he would always be welcome to return should he wish to do so. Since then, Kevin returned to the role of young hotshot lawyer named "Billy Flynn" in the Broadway musical Chicago for a short engagement in Toronto, Canada in late 2006. In a recent INROCK interview, Brian Littrell said the Backstreet Boys newest album will include various music styles, combining their earlier mid-90's sound with their most recent guitar driven pop/rock sound. The album is due to come out Summer 2007.

Here are some pics of them, enjoy ;-)

These pics are publicity pics from their latest album, Never Gone

I’m sorry I couldn’t get their younger days’ pictures. I’m using my new pc and thus, I don’t have their earlier archive. If anyone happens to have them, could you please send them to me? My e-mail address is shinichi6507@hotmail.com .
I don’t care if some of you say that you think that BSB have no talent or they are just counting on their looks, I’m still their greatest fan anyway (I am a Westlife hater myself but I don’t force my friends to hate them as well, so if you think of writing down negative comments on BSB, here’s what I’m gonna say to all you BSB haters out there, “You may as well forget about it, cos it ain’t gonna work, honey.”). I have been working on this particular post for a few days already and I’d say, it was quite a challenging undertaking for there was a lot of time I was thwarted in my attempt to create this post. A few times my Internet Explorer stopped responding (I still don’t know why my IE does this on a regular basis like, for instance when I want to close a page. Maybe it has something to do with Windows Vista being still new in the market and there are still problems that aren’t solved yet) and the worst was when I was pouring out my feelings of BSB from the depth of my heart yesterday and my IE had to choose that time to start acting funnily. As you guys can see from my previous post, I spent a long time on it and I was so furious that I cried and banged my pc a few times. However, today, after a long nap from 5 till 8 pm, I finally mustered the courage to take on the challenge on doing a post on BSB. And believe me when I say that I have been thinking about something on the BSB for a long, long time.
So here I am, congratulating myself for eventually perfecting this post. And to all of you who read this post till this very end, thanks a zillion!!!