For all its surprising cross-demographic appeal, not everybody has succumbed to the tidal wave of teen pop sweeping America. " I feel like the 5 year-olds have spoken- and let'em, if htey want Britney or Barney, or whatever." says Third Eye Blind's Stephen Jenkins. "I guess we were contributing factor, and I feel a little bit guilty for starting the whole thin." confesses Spice Girl Melanie C., campaighning for clemency before her more mature solo album comes out this fall. " I feel like it's a conspiracy, like someone's playing a joke on us," says Fieldy, the bassists for KORN, grumpily speaking for many mystified rocker. "I watch it all with a frown."
Maybe Fieldy should take up this beef with his band's managers, who also happen to sheperd-you guessed it- the five MILLENNIUM-meisters who are THE UNQUESTIONED RAGE OF THE NATION. As the record industry unleashes its flood of new releases into the lucrative fall market, even optimistic label execs would have to concede it's the BACKSTREET BOYS' WORLD, and the rest of the pop and rock community just shrieks, screams, cries and quivers in it.
Teen pop's quintessential poster boys just passed the seven-times platinum mark with MILLENNIUM< beating any sophomore skepticism to prove that at minimum, they're a two-megahit wonder. But while they're selling CDs as fast as they can press 'em- at a rate of 200,000 pluss a wee- they-re selling zero concert tickets right now. As in zilch. In an unprecedented move that couldn't have been any craftier if it'd been choregraphed by Fosse, the Backstreet Boys put the dates for all 39 dates cities on their upcoming 11-week American arean tour on sale August 14, grossing a reported $30 million in the hour or so it took every last ticket to get snatched.
The world's biggest simultaneous sell-ou6t great publicity coup-right? "We had unfortunately, a lot of disappointed fans. That actually wasn't not a good thing," says Strauss Zelnick, cheif of BMG Entertianment, home of the Boys and other teen pop titans. "You can't believe the letter I got."
Death threats from ticketless gradeschoolers aside, it's all good for the Backstreeters. And any malcontents hoping teen pop will disapper as quickly as it arrived are going to have to wish a lot more hardbodies than just Nick, AJ, Howie, Brian and Kevin into the cornfield. Boy Band N'sync also hit 7 million mark with their debut, with no signs that their fall follow-up, No Strings Attached, shouldn't do the same.
The did- she- or didn't she chatter about Britney Spears' hasn't slowed her down her way to 6 million albums and counting. Spear's fellow ex-Mouseketeer Christina Aguilera recently knocked the Boys out of first place on the album chart with her debut. And the newly released album from LFO ( purveyors of the simpering hit "Summer Girls" and its shamelss shout-out to Abercrombie and Fitch) should ensure the youth brigade won't lack for a fresh-faced reinforcement. With the kid crowd set to dominate retail's front racks through Christmas, superstar releases geared to fickle Gen-Xers and boomers-from the likes of Bush, Counting Crows, Sting, Live, et. al. - seem less certian than ever in a business that banished "sure thing" from its volaburlary. Even Fiona Apple and Beck begin to take on a classic- rock patina next to the reen pop crop. Small wonder that in the ad campaign for the first single from her November album, a very blond, very bare waisted Mariah Carey appears to be turning herself into a ringer for Britney or Christina before our very eyes.
Hip-hop is expected to take over again come December, when monstrous releases from Jay-Z and DMX hit the street. And Korn and Rage Against the Machine records will certainly rechard 1999's exterme rock" uggernaut. But until then look like all teens, all the time. So what you may wonder, happened to the good old days of when New Kids on the Block were a punchline? Did the grunge revolution teach us anything?
Well, yes: that it's difficult to foster mass disillusionment when the economy is swell, and that in a pinch even postgrads will take a combination of innocence, bump n-grind Broadway flash, and cute navel over navel gazing. "I'm not gonna say it's 40 years yet but the age of (teen pop record buyers) keep skewing a little bit older," says MTV's senior VP of music and talent, Tom Calderone- who keww things were big when 15,000 Backstreet fans, camped outside the networks's Time Square Head Quarters kept him from going to work one day.
Record Industry publicist David Millman remembers when teen magazine 16 and BOP were screaming for new star to cover in the early 90's and not getting 'em. "Labels used to have trouble with these acts because they're not what any body wanted to admit they listen to. It's only now that it's so big there's a shabby retro-chic feel to the whole thing: "Oh, of course I love it, it's a guilty pleauser.: But a SINLE LIKE THE BACKSTREET BOYS' I WANT IT THAT WAY' ISN'T A GUILTY PLEASURE AT ALL- IT IS A PLEASURE."
If there's less guilt on the fan side, there's less among the performers, too. "Remember David Cassidy? or the end of the New Kids whell all of them were trying to hard to not be teen idols? says one music biz veteran. "You don't see these news acts distancing themselves from their success or having disdain for their preteen fans. Britney and Christina and the Backstreet Boys love being pop stars. They're not try8ng to say, "Really, when I go home, all I listen to is Method Man."
Concert promoters are as cheeful as retailers about the teen pop breakthrough. "The Backstreet Boys' tour is an incredible phenomenon" exults Gary Bongiovanni, ediot of Pollstar, the live-music trade. Ditto to Ricky Martin, another fall tour smash, who like the Backstreet Boys, can sell as many tickets as he cares to put on sale. "It's encouraging because the acts that have been the biggest ticket sellers are still the acts that came along in the "60's and 70's- Pink Floyd, Elton,the Stones, clapton, and sooner or later they're GONNA WEAR OUT AND DROP OFF THE SCENE." Not that he expects today's live wirs to be the next Dead. "IT's A HUGE CHALLENGE FOR THE BACKSTREET BOYS TO MAINTAIN CAREER LONGEVITY, BECAUSE YOU'VE GOTTA ASK YOURSELF, Where's Debbie Gibson? Where's Tiffany? New Kids went from a stadium act to not even being able to sell out clubs three years later.
Big Deal, figures RCA senior VP of A&R Ron Fair, who hopes for 30 year run with Aguilera but has no problem with anyone else enjoying a great 30 month run. "People are quick to say, "Yeah, but how long will it last?" But that's not necessarily the goal. People's appetites for recording artists are moving at a much faster pace than they used to. Whether this wave of teen pop stans the test of time doesn't invalidate it for now. It's revelant now."
Forgettable now, too some would say. But not every member of the older guard is suspicious. No less a cynic than Randy Newman sang Aguielera's praises after watching her perform "Genie in a Bottle"on UPN's recent Summer Music Mania 99 Special. " I think she's gonna be around," he says. "And that song is a hit song in 1963, 1973, 1983- whenever." Hey if Newman can look teendom in the eyes and say I love it, Who are you to Say I DON'T WANT IT THAT WAY?.
