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The Backstreet Boys (sometimes referred to as BSB are an American vocal harmony group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The group consists of A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell. They rose to fame with their debut international album, Backstreet Boys (1996). In the following year, they released their second international album Backstreet's Back (1997) and their U.S. debut album which continued the group's success worldwide. They rose to superstardom with their third studio album Millennium (1999) and its follow-up album, Black & Blue (2000).
After a two-year hiatus, they regrouped and released a comeback album Never Gone (2005). Richardson left the group after the conclusion of Never Gone Tour in 2006 to pursue other interests. The group then released two albums as a quartet: Unbreakable (2007) and This Is Us (2009).
In April 2012, the group announced that Richardson had rejoined them permanently, and in August, they made their very first performance as a reunited five-piece, closing out Good Morning America's Summer Concert Series. Their first album back as a quintet, In a World Like This, which was also their first independent album, was released in July 2013.
The Backstreet Boys have sold over 130 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling boy band in history, and one of the world's best-selling music artists. They are the first group since Sade to have their first nine albums reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200. They also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 22, 2013.
Cousins Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell, both from Lexington, Kentucky, sang in local church choirs and festivals when they were children. Howie Dorough and A. J. McLean were natives of Orlando, Florida, who met each other and later discovered Nick Carter through auditions. The three, realizing that they could harmonize together, decided to form a trio. Meanwhile, Richardson moved to Orlando in 1990, where he worked at Walt Disney World and concentrated on music at night. Eventually, he met Dorough, Carter, and McLean through a co-worker, and the four decided to form a group.
In the course of all this, Lou Pearlman in 1992 placed an ad in the Orlando Sentinel to compose a vocal group. McLean, who was the first to audition for Pearlman in his living room, became the group's first member. In January 1993, Pearlman held an open casting call and hundreds of young performers auditioned at his blimp hangar in Kissimmee. Eventually, Carter, Dorough, and Richardson were selected after meeting Pearlman's expectations. Littrell flew from Kentucky to Orlando to formally join the group on April 20, 1993, a day after receiving a phone call from Richardson about it. Thus April 20 became their anniversary date.= Pearlman decided to call them Backstreet Boys, after Orlando's Backstreet Market, an outdoor flea market near International Drive which was also a teen hangout.
The Backstreet Boys had their very first performance at SeaWorld Orlando on May 8, 1993. The group then continued to perform in various venues during summer 1993, from shopping malls, restaurants, to a high-profile charity gala in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. With a change in management in the fall, they began to tour schools across the U.S. (including Littrell's former school, Tates Creek High School), building a fan base while trying to get a record deal. Mercury Records nearly signed them in 1993, but the deal fell through at the last minute because longtime Mercury recording artist John Mellencamp threatened to leave the label if they got in boy band business. However, in February 1994, Jeff Fenster (then senior VP A&R Zomba/Jive Records) and David Renzer (then senior VP/GM of Zomba Music Publishing) caught the group performing at a high school in Cleveland, and signed them to their first record deal.
In 1997, Littrell brought a lawsuit against Lou Pearlman and Trans Continental claiming that Pearlman had not been truthful about the earnings made by the group. In the following year, McLean, Richardson, and Dorough joined the lawsuit which eventually resulted in a number of settlements.
In November 1997, doctors discovered that a congenital hole in Littrell's heart had enlarged to dangerous proportions.Littrell postponed the open-heart surgery twice to meet touring obligations, and he finally underwent the surgery on May 8, 1998, in the middle of the Backstreet's Back Tour. The group postponed the tour until July 1998 to give Littrell time to recover. In September 1998, the group for the first time had to cancel a show due to Dorough's sister Caroline's death a day before.
On January 28, 2001, the Backstreet Boys performed the American national anthem at the Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, Florida. A week earlier, the group began the "Black & Blue Tour", which featured shows in five continents. The tour was put on hold in July when it was reported that McLean had entered rehab to battle alcoholism and depression after Richardson held an intervention for him at a Boston hotel. The tour resumed in August and concluded in November.
In 2002, the group expressed a strong desire to leave their management company, The Firm. However, Carter chose to remain with The Firm to manage his solo career. Shortly afterwards, the rest of the group began recording their next album without him. The relationship with Jive Records worsened when the Backstreet Boys filed a $75–100 million lawsuit against Zomba Music Group (Jive's parent company), claiming breach of contract. They claimed that the label promoted Carter's solo album Now or Never at the expense of the group.
In November 2003, McLean appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about his addiction to alcohol and drugs, and his struggles rising to fame for the first time in public. The rest of the group surprised him by appearing in person to give him support, marking the first time the Backstreet Boys had appeared together in public in almost two years. The group began to reform and reconcile their differences, planning to start recording a comeback album at the beginning of the following year.
On June 23, 2006, it was announced that Richardson had left the Backstreet Boys to pursue other interests. Both Richardson and the rest of the group issued a statement on their official site, stating that he departed amicably and the door was always open for him to return. Following Richardson's departure, the group was suggested to change their name to Backstreet, but they decided against it. They also turned down an offer to star in a reality show to find a new member and musicians who had expressed interest in replacing Richardson, such as Sam Licata and former 'N Sync members Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, stating that they weren't planning to replace him.
During the show in Staples Center, LA, in July 2011, Richardson once again joined the group on stage.
As he had announced before on On Air with Ryan Seacrest in October 2011, Richardson hosted a beach party, part of the group's second annual cruise, in the Bahamas on December 3, 2011, where he performed with them. On Seacrest's radio show, he also stated that he would love to perform with the group again on a more regular basis.The statement, along with his appearance at the cruise event, prompted speculations that he might rejoin the group for good, but both he and the group remained quiet on the matter.
I think it was the right decision. I think for us to maximize the ability that we have as five to move forward, it wouldn't be with another group, it would just be on our own.
“”
--Brian Littrell
The Backstreet Boys finally announced that Richardson had rejoined them permanently during a show in London on April 29, 2012. A few days later, McLean and Littrell revealed on separate occasions that Richardson had returned since 2010, before NKOTBSB Tour started. He had been in talk to join the tour but ultimately decided not to. They supported his decision and kept his return a secret until the tour was over. The group spoke positively about Richardson's return, stating that they couldn't be happier to have him back. Richardson himself was thrilled to be back with his old bandmates, saying that they have a chemistry and a bond.
The Backstreet Boys have always prided themselves as a vocal harmony group and not a boy band.In order to fight the boy band stereotype and the backlash from New Kids on the Block's lip-sync scandal in the beginning, they sang a cappella at every chance they got. The ad they answered in 1993 was for a singing group with "New Kids on the Block look with a Boyz II Men sound", and they aimed to have a white version of Boyz II Men. "We were fans of New Kids, but were we really modeled after them? No. We looked at ourselves as Shai, Jodeci, Boyz II Men, the true vocal groups. That's who we listened to and who we really wanted to be like," Littrell stated in 2011. The Backstreet Boys often employ polyphonic harmony, which makes them unique and sets them apart from other singing groups. In choruses, Littrell, Carter, and McLean usually sing the melody with Dorough harmonizing above the melody and Richardson covering the bass parts. During Richardson's absence, McLean and Carter together covered his part in choruses while Dorough took his solo parts.
The Backstreet Boys' musical style has evolved over the years. On their debut and sophomore album, they sang a hybrid of R&B and dance club pop mixed with new jack balladry and hip-hop. With Millennium and Black & Blue, they started to abandon R&B and shift more toward pop and pop rock, as demonstrated on songs like "I Want It That Way", "Shape of My Heart", "Larger than Life", and "Not For Me". The group drastically changed their style in 2005 with their comeback album Never Gone, which is an adult contemporary record featuring only live instruments, a departure from their previous pop sound that features a lot of synthesizer. Compared to their previous albums, Never Gone is "more organic, more stripped-down, less harmonies, more instrumentation". Their first album without Richardson, Unbreakable, is similar to Never Gone. It leans toward adult contemporary and contemporary pop music and features interwoven choral harmonies, piano, strings, guitar, and drums, with a little bit of hip-hop and reggae elements on some tracks, such as "One in A Million". With their seventh studio album, This Is Us, they went back to their original dance-pop beats combined with electropop. It also contains a more R&B sound compared to Unbreakable. The group's first independent album, In A World Like This, which is also their first album back with Richardson, is a mixture of modern pop, adult contemporary, and dance music, with a hint of singer/songwriter genre as demonstrated on "Try", "Madeleine", and "Trust Me".
The second leg of Into the Millennium Tour, which was also the first North American leg, was sponsored by Sears and was officially titled "Sears Presents Backstreet Boys Into The Millennium". The sponsorship was a part of Sears' new integrated marketing campaign that exclusively featured the Backstreet Boys. The campaign included a 30-second advertisement, featuring the group, which was aired from August 1–15, 1999. The advertising promoted a back-to-school sweepstakes which gave each of five fans the chance to win a $2,000 Sears shopping spree with their favorite Backstreet Boys member, and a trip for four to the group's concert on December 1, 1999 in Tampa, Florida.
Carter, who was a comic fan, met comic book writer Stan Lee through his manager from The Firm in February 2000. Carter subsequently told Lee about his original concept of a six-issue series of comic books featuring members of the Backstreet Boys as superheroes called "Cyber Crusaders". Lee was interested in the concept; however, they ultimately decided to make it into only one issue.[143] The comic book, titled Backstreet Project, was released in 2000 and was available for purchase at their concerts and online stores in 2000–2001. In addition to the book, a series of flash-based webisodes were also published in 2000.
In January 2000, the Backstreet Boys signed a deal with Burger King. The deal included an exclusive compilation set that was only available for sale at Burger King restaurants. The compilation consisted of three CDs featuring a new song called "It's True" and live songs from the group's previous tours, and a VHS tape featuring backstage footage and interviews. In August 2000, it was announced that the deal would also include three TV commercials featuring the Backstreet Boys, and a promotion, which was the inclusion of an exclusive Backstreet Project Cyber Crusader toy in each Burger King Big Kids Meal and Kids Meal.
In August 2012, it was revealed that the Backstreet Boys would be starring in an Old Navy commercial. The commercial featuring the group started airing on September 19, 2012. "It was a great way to show people that we're back," Richardson said regarding the commercial. The group also performed at an Old Navy event "Fit For Fall Fashion Show for All" in Bryant Park, New York on September 14, 2012.
Members
Brian Littrell – vocals (1993–present)
A. J. McLean – vocals (1993–present)
Howie Dorough – vocals (1993–present)
Nick Carter – vocals (1993–present)
Kevin Richardson – vocals (1993–2006; 2012–present)
Discography
Main article: Backstreet Boys discography
Backstreet Boys (1996)
Backstreet's Back (1997)
Millennium (1999)
Black & Blue (2000)
Never Gone (2005)
Unbreakable (2007)
This is Us
In a world like this
