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Like It's 1999
Flashback to 1999: The antics of O.J. Simpson are still big news. Hilary Clinton's every utterance is analyzed by conservatives. The Mets blow it in the final stretch of a promising season. And new releases from Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys are poised to dominate radio and sales charts.
Nearly a decade later, the only thing changed is the certainty of that last part. Neither CD sales nor radio play matter so much in the MP3 era as they did when the nation fretted over whether a "millennium bug" would devastate its active eBay auctions.
Also, the fans who worshipped Spears and Backstreet have grown up. As have their idols, with varying degrees of grace.
Though unprecedented early success led the Backstreet Boys to their own thicket of lawsuits, personal problems and, scariest of all, solo careers, they prevail with good looks and lovelorn hooks intact. Whatever magic made them the highest selling pop group in the known history of human music-making has kept the mojo working with surprising stamina.
Whether you and I noticed it, Backstreet's 2005 album, "Never Gone," went platinum. That's remarkable in a music-biz currently defined by diminished expectations and clueless as to how it can continue to exist when sales numbers that once would've gotten an act dropped now rate as solid returns. There is no reason to expect that "Unbreakable" will fail to repeat this success, unless the absence of founding member Kevin Richardson betokens dark reversals ahead.
AJ, Nick, Howie and Brian obviously don't think so. New, rueful considerations of love's trials, "Happily Never After" and "Inconsolable," echo earlier ballads like "All I Have To Give," but with subtle, almost imperceptible shadings of relative maturity. A slightly older, marginally wiser Backstreet ups the punchy, mid-tempo ante of their immortal "I Want it That Way" with the edgy, innovative "Any Other Way."
Tuesday's double whammy of new releases by these grizzled veterans will reveal if music executives and fans alike can once again party like it's 1999.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10282007/entertainment/music/like_its_1999.htm
Flashback to 1999: The antics of O.J. Simpson are still big news. Hilary Clinton's every utterance is analyzed by conservatives. The Mets blow it in the final stretch of a promising season. And new releases from Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys are poised to dominate radio and sales charts.
Nearly a decade later, the only thing changed is the certainty of that last part. Neither CD sales nor radio play matter so much in the MP3 era as they did when the nation fretted over whether a "millennium bug" would devastate its active eBay auctions.
Also, the fans who worshipped Spears and Backstreet have grown up. As have their idols, with varying degrees of grace.
Though unprecedented early success led the Backstreet Boys to their own thicket of lawsuits, personal problems and, scariest of all, solo careers, they prevail with good looks and lovelorn hooks intact. Whatever magic made them the highest selling pop group in the known history of human music-making has kept the mojo working with surprising stamina.
Whether you and I noticed it, Backstreet's 2005 album, "Never Gone," went platinum. That's remarkable in a music-biz currently defined by diminished expectations and clueless as to how it can continue to exist when sales numbers that once would've gotten an act dropped now rate as solid returns. There is no reason to expect that "Unbreakable" will fail to repeat this success, unless the absence of founding member Kevin Richardson betokens dark reversals ahead.
AJ, Nick, Howie and Brian obviously don't think so. New, rueful considerations of love's trials, "Happily Never After" and "Inconsolable," echo earlier ballads like "All I Have To Give," but with subtle, almost imperceptible shadings of relative maturity. A slightly older, marginally wiser Backstreet ups the punchy, mid-tempo ante of their immortal "I Want it That Way" with the edgy, innovative "Any Other Way."
Tuesday's double whammy of new releases by these grizzled veterans will reveal if music executives and fans alike can once again party like it's 1999.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10282007/entertainment/music/like_its_1999.htm