I was born in 1974, and so my formative childhood years are the 1980’s. I’m a proud, card carrying member of Generation X. I loved all kinds of music when I was growing up, from 80’s pop to classic rock from the 60’s and 70’s to hip hop.
When it came to R & B, black boy bands dominated the charts. There was the very cool Bell Biv Devoe, formed out of the remains of New Edition, which was another incredible band. There were a few white acts, most notably New Kids on the Block, whose most famous member is most definitely Donnie Wahlberg. He’s the longtime star of TV’s Blue Bloods and the brother of mega-Hollywood superstar Mark Wahlberg.
But the truth is, New Kids On The Block were pretty cheesy. Their major hits included Please Don’t Go Girl, and I’ll Be Loving You (Forever). Their first album was released in 1986, and by 1992 they were already on a steep decline, with accusations of lip synching dogging them at one point.
So there was a void in the white boy band genre. The black boy band genre has been thriving since at least the Jackson Five in the 70’s, but not so for their melanin-starved brethren.
Then in 1999, The Backstreet Boys came along, and they flipped the world upside down and changed the whole equation. After gaining popularity in Europe in the early 90’s, their first major hit in the US was released in 1997. Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) climbed as high as number two on Billboard’s top 100.
The stage was set for their second major US studio album, and the excitement in America was palpable. Who were these funky white boys who could really get down, and sounded pretty damn dope and harmonious, regardless of what they looked like?
The second album, Backstreet’s Back, was released in August, 1997, and it didn’t disappoint. It reached number 4 on the US album chart and sold 28 million copies worldwide.
One of the biggest hits was a cover of P.M. Dawn’s classic Set Adrift on Memory Bliss. As Long as You Love Me was also a major hit.
The Backstreet Boys were now poised for superstardom, and with the release of 1999’s Millenium, they struck gold. The album debuted at number 1, and yielded four megahits, including “I Want It That Way” and “Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely.” The album cemented their status as the boy band of the 90’s, white or black, purple or green.
As I write this, I’ve been listening to Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely on my Google Home. This just might be my all-time favorite Backstreet Boys track. The song really resonates with me, and it’s a powerful statement about the pain of a love lost. Some of the lyrics are so great, I’m quoting them at length here:
So many words for the broken heart
It’s hard to see in a crimson love
So hard to breathe
Walk with me, and maybe
Nights of light so soon become
Wild and free I could feel the sun
Your every wish will be done
They tell me
Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why I can’t be there where you are
There’s something missing in my heart
I mean if that’s not deep, I don’t know what is. “There’s something missing in my heart” is like, wow, just strong stuff. I think we can all relate to losing a lover and feeling that we’ve lost a part of our heart, which is why this song resonated so strongly with fans.
It’s also very melodic and beautiful, with a haunting guitar, and soft drums, and an incredible vocal performance by the band’s five members. It just hits you in the gut and rocks you.
The Backstreet Boys would go on to release many more successful albums throughout the 90’s and 2000’s, though I felt they never duplicated the peak of Millenium. Still, they put out a lot of good music.
As happens with all bands, they starting getting older and losing a little popularity by around 2010, so they teamed up with, of all groups, New Kids on The Block! Ha! The megagroup was billed as NKOTBSB. Pretty cool marketing, I must say.
So they’re still around, they’re just not quite as relevant as they were twenty years ago. But make no mistake, they’ve left an indelible mark on the history of pop music.
They also gave birth to scores of other white boy bands, perhaps most famously N’SYNC, of which Justin Timberlake is the most famous member. There was also 98 Degrees, LSO, and The Jonas Brothers.
Perhaps most importantly, they paved the way for white dudes to be hip, and funky, and lovers, and fighters, and poets, and preachers, just like the black boy bands had been doing so spectacularly well since the 70’s.
Justin Bieber may be their most famous generational son. Because his music, which I don’t particularly care for, is so enmeshed with black culture and hip hop that it’s hard to distinguish whether he’s singing white or black music. The truth is, it doesn’t matter one bit. If you like his music, good for you. I don’t like it.
But there’s no way The Beebs could do what he does, and have the street cred and acceptance among all races that he has, without the Backstreet Boys blazing a trail for him and for all white R&B performers.
So thank you Backstreet Boys for bringing us over twenty years of great music, and for redefining who could sing R & B. We’re all better off because of you, and you will never be forgotten.
