Backstreet Boys 101: What's all the fuss about?

02/17/00

Source: The Depot

By JERI ROWE, Staff Writer

Music critics call it the Sound of Young America.

The Backstreet Boys, a supergroup coming Sunday to the Greensboro Coliseum, has tapped an international longing for innocent boy-meets-girl pop with ultraslick production, G-rated lyrics and a powerful hip-hop backbeat.

The Boys' popularity is Texas-huge. The group is raking in enough awards, money and accolades to make even the toughest critic admit that they have lasted far longer than a lunchbox season, the usual lifespan for other youth-oriented acts.

Boymania has officially gripped the country, even the Triad.

So, what is all the fuss about? We at City Life try to help you understand.

The Boys are born

It all started in 1993, in Orlando, Fla. High school students A.J. McLean and Howie Dorough and junior-high student Nick Carter started running into each other at local acting auditions, became friends and decided to form a singing group.

• Enter Ron Pearlman, a Florida businessman nicknamed Big Poppa because of his large girth. The Washington Post has likened him to a teddy bear. Pearlman decided to get into the boy-group business after leasing New Kids On The Block a plane and seeing a way to make some money. Pearlman held an open casting call in the theme-park capital of the world to grab talent. He found McLean, Dorough and Carter.
• The trio picked up Kevin Richardson, who at the time was performing at Disney World. Then, after looking unsuccessfully for a fifth member, Richardson recruited his cousin from Kentucky, Brian Littrell. Littrell relocated and joined the group.
• The five-member group took their name from the Backstreet Market, a place where they performed in Orlando. Within six months of forming, they became one of Florida's hottest live acts. They performed at high schools, Grad Night at Sea World and an opening slot for Brandy.

  The Boys' buzz starts

• The Backstreet Boys first went to Europe and Canada, two places where youth-oriented acts were more popular. In 1996, the Boys released their self-titled debut CD. They sold out a 57-date European tour and sold out 32 Canadian dates in less than 20 minutes.
• Their debut CD sold 6 million copies in Canada. In 1997, the debut album was released in the United States and spawned five hit singles.

  The Boys' grow up

• In May 1998, the Boys sued Big Poppa and claimed he and his company had pocketed about $10 million in recording and touring revenue since 1993. He contested their claims. The two parties settled the lawsuit out of court; details weren't disclosed.
• In spring 1999, the Boys released their second CD, "Millennium." The CD sold more than 15 million copies worldwide and produced two hits, "I Want It That Way" and "Larger Than Life."
• In August, the Boys sold out an entire tour -- 53 shows, 765,000 tickets worth $30 million -- in one day.
• The Boys resign with their record company, Jive Records, for $60 million after threatening to leave. That contract put them into the same big-money league as The Rolling Stones.
• McLean's ex-girlfriend has written a book called "Loving A.J.: My Six-Year Romance with a Backstreet Boy." Littrell's prom date from Kentucky has written a book called, "What You Wanna Know: Backstreet Boys' Secrets Only a Girlfriend Can Tell."
• In four years, the group has sold more than 40 million CDs and grossed $900 million inrecord, video and merchandise sales.
• The awards continue to build. The group received four awards from Billboard magazine last year, including Album of the Year and Artist of the Year.

  The group also grabbed everything in the 1999 readers' poll from Rolling Stone magazine: artists of the year, band of the year, album of the year, single of the year, best video, best dressed, best Web site, best tour and biggest hype.

  Boymania grabs Greensboro

• The Boys sold out the Greensboro Coliseum faster than any other show in the building's40-year history. Fans bought 20,300 tickets in 78 minutes. Sunday's Backstreet Boys show at the Greensboro Coliseum will be the arena's best attended and highest grossing show ever. The show is expected to gross more than $1 million.
• Fans listening to WKZL (107.5 FM) go goofy to get tickets for the Boys' Greensboro Coliseum show. One eats worms, another sucks honey off someone's toes and another scales a fish as she holds it in her mouth. The winner is Dawn Larkins from Kernersville, who allowed three chickens to eat chicken feed off her honey-covered body.
• For the Greensboro show, three 17-year-old students from Winston-Salem's Bishop McGuinness High School plan to wrap themselves in white Christmas tree lights and wear T-shirts with glow-in-the-dark letters that read BSB. Yes, they want to get onstage.
• Lauren Armstrong bought a ticket because the Boys are her world. Just step into her bedroom. Posters and pictures obscure every speck of paint. On every available space inside -- a dresser, a shelf, a spot on the floor -- there is something Boy-related.

  "Oh my gosh, they are the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see before I go to bed at night," says Lauren, 13, a seventh-grader at Kernersville Middle School. "Backstreet Boys rule. You know they'll never break your heart."

• Two local stations, WKZL and WMAG (99.5 FM), are giving away tickets to Sunday's show. Both have given away nearly 300 tickets. Says WKZL's Jeff McHugh: "It's like the phone never stops ringing. People are always asking, 'When are you going to give away another pair?'"

  It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Superboys

• According to the Los Angeles Times, each member is an archetype of boyish masculinity.

  McLean, 22, is the tattooed and tenderhearted B-boy with a street-tough attitude; Dorough, 26, is the earnest, shy romantic; Littrell, 23, is the Southern heartthrob; Carter, 19, is the talented pretty boy; and Richardson, 28, is the dark Adonis whom People magazine named 1999's sexiest pop star.

• The Boys will bring into Greensboro Coliseum the largest show the arena has ever seen: 24 tractor-trailers that will lug in loads of equipment, including a pentagon-shaped stage and rigging for the Boys to fly onto the stage.
• According to USA Today, the show starts like this: The lights go down, geysers of smoke shoot up and the Boys sail through the air on lighted boogie boards to the stage in the middle of the arena while the theme from the movie "Star Wars" plays.
• Time magazine says the Boys' popularity has led to the group's own online comic book from Marvel Comics, home of Spiderman and The Hulk. In the comic, all the Boys have their own super powers. Littrell, for instance, can jump "higher than a dozen Michael Jordans."
• Now, a final word from the oldest Boy. "Everybody's trying to preach," Richardson told Rolling Stone magazine. "All we're trying to accomplish is to make pretty love songs for guys and girls to slow dance to, up-tempos to make you dance and midtempos for in your car, to make you forget about the traffic. It's entertainment. It's fun."