Title: Carter family is hot in pop realm
Date: Aug 30, 2001
Source: Hartford Courant
Source: http://www.backstreet.net/www.cgi?x=show&d=news&i=010830-1621-01&c=6
Author: Roger Catlin
Topic: Article/Interview
[This article refers to Nick's twin but they meant to refer to Aaron's twin]
Look up the Carter Family in music history books and you'll learn about one of the first families in American music from rural Virginia, whose patriarch A.J. Carter led it to some of country's first recording sessions. Look up the Carter family in the current music charts, though, and it's a different Southern clan.
Big brother Nick Carter of Orlando, Fla., is with Backstreet Boys with two songs on the adult contemporary Top 20 and an 8 million-selling album.
Little brother Aaron Carter's newest album, "Oh, Aaron," debuts at No. 7 this week on the Billboard chart. It is his second album in less than a year - his 2 million-selling "Aaron's Party (Come and Get It)" is still on the chart. And his just-released "Aaron's Party ... Live in Concert" is the nation's bestselling music video.
There's also Leslie Carter, his sister, who is on the charts with "Like, Wow!"
Like, wow may also be your reaction to the Carter-chocked charts.
Not since the heyday of Jacksons and Osmonds has one family spread its influence so wide in the pop realm. And there may be more coming at us: B.J. Carter is in acting school; Nick's twin, Angel, has contracted to do some commercials and other work.
Aaron Carter's connection to his big brother is not one he's kept secret since he started recording four years ago. He's long held that it was his brother who influenced him to become a singer.
But he's barely two verses into his new album before he lets it fly: "I said I had a brother in the Backstreet Boys."
And, sure enough, Nick Carter appears to help him out with his unwieldy request for tickets for a Backstreet concert on a single with vaguely Caribbean feel.
Big brother hangs out as well on the second "Not Too Young, Not Too Old," in which Aaron addresses the advantages of being a teen-ager.
"Don't even playa hate and say I look 10!" he says in one of his playful raps. And though he is taller than the 4-foot-7 he was when he was opening for the Backstreet Boys locally at age 10, he's still youthful enough to get the name Babyface.
It's getting clear Aaron won't always need to hang on to big brother's shirttails.
After all, it was Aaron's previous album, "Aaron's Party (Come and Get It)," that was No. 4 when big brother's "Black & Blue" album was getting black and blue on the charts. Aaron's tour has been going strong while big brother's big tour has been derailed for more than a month because of the treatment in a rehabilitation center of Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean for alcoholism, anxiety and depression.
Those are pretty grown-up problems for a group that made its name attracting the youngest music fans.
But aging is a reality among the first tier of the recent teen pop front. Two Backstreet Boys are married; a member of 'N Sync fathered a child out of wedlock. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are talking about career extensions and movie careers.
What happened to the fun?
Well, that's what 13-year-old Aaron is here for.
Adopting a style perfected by pre-Hollywood Will Smith, back when he was still a Fresh Prince, Carter the Younger is not the crooner his big brother is. Instead, he's got a flip, talk-rap style right out of "Parents Just Don't Understand."
