Review Summary: Truly larger than life.
Before I bury the lede, let me just get it out the way:
I f*cking love the Backstreet Boys. Albeit, this is a fairly new revelation, as I've only sank my teeth into their catalog in the last couple of years. But I'm sure it will come as no surprise from Sputnik's #1 Rascal Flatts and Three Days Grace fan. I know Snake is still mad that Three Days Grace killed Kennedy and then threw away his macaroni sculpture in kindergarten. My love affair with Backstreet has a hazy prologue. My two older sisters adored them at the height of their popularity. Their old CDs collect dust in my basement to this day. It took a 2016 collab with Florida Georgia Line (yikes) getting heavy play on country radio for me to realize they weren't dead and from there, I decided to delve into their discography. Imagine this for a second; the Backstreet Boys'
Total Request Live appearance on the day
Millennium released shut down Times Square.
Times f*cking Square. By contrast, your favorite band, Brand New, has a lead singer that sleeps with teenage girls.
In brushing up for this latest boredom induced barrage of incendiary remarks, I learned that the Backstreet Boys were somewhat indignant about this greatest hits album, which was released in October 2001. Backstreet wanted to wait until two years later, in order to commemorate their 10th anniversary as a group with a greatest hits package. In response, Jive Records told them to
go pound sand. Admittedly, it was slightly past the band's commercial peak either way, with the album's lifetime sales in the US barely eclipsing what
Millennium moved in one God damn week. Backstreet wouldn't resurface again until 2005, with the adult contemporary driven
Never Gone and its sleeper hit lead single "Incomplete." The band's commercial relevance knows no days beyond that point. Still, they've stuck around consistently, had a successful Vegas residency and even topped the Billboard 200 again in 2019. But the glory days were relatively fleeting, and it's all encased on
The Hits: Chapter One.
The band's signature cuts "I Want It That Way" and "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" lead things off. The former track is simply the greatest pop song of all time. The call and response delivery of the chorus begs to be sung by countless scores of fans and the later key change is the stuff of legends. Every member gets a chance to sing lead and it can't be overlooked how important Howie Dorough and Kevin Richardson were to filling in the band's broader harmonies. Mostly straying from chronological order, the compilations oscillates between different albums and different sensibilities employed by the group in their early years. "Shape Of My Heart" is a sterling stanza about mistakes admitted and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" showcases the early disconnect in performance between leads Brian Littrell and Nick Carter. I'd say the gap closed between the two in later years, but in the band's heyday, Littrell
was Backstreet. His recent struggles with vocal dystonia have robbed him of much of his voice's angelic properties, but he can still knock those highs out of the f*cking park.
AJ McLean can't be discounted when talking about the group's best singers, though. On "More Than That" and "Drowning", this album's lone single, he shines with an abundance of raspy vocal runs and seamless harmony fills. Elsewhere, "Larger Than Life" shows out with its 90s af talkbox and "The Call" is driven by....Howie Dorough's farts.
I'm dead f*cking serious. They took this man's flatulence and processed it into a bass beat. F*cking iconic. Across twelve hit singles and one new addition lay seven years of unprecedented success. Of course, it was released against the wishes of the band themselves. But I don't think this necessarily came out at a bad time to reflect. Money talks in the industry, and few brought home the bacon like Backstreet did in the late 90s-early 00s. Considering the band's commercial returns dwindled precipitously after this, with few flareups back to relevancy in between, this release is arguably all the more essential. Every song from their first four albums that needed to be here, is here.
Hopefully the Boys come to the Northeast sometime soon. I've always wanted to see Aaron Carter's brother fall to his knees during every song in person.
