It's been five years since the release of the first Backstreet Boys disc.
Backstreet Boys (Jive) went on to sell 14 million copies, launching the
teen-pop explosion that ruled the charts at the turn of the millennium. Britney
Spears and 'N Sync soon joined the party, and together the three Jive
labelmates came to rule the pop charts before most of them were old enough to
order a beer. Now Britney is about to turn 21, and the boy-band wars have
entered a new phase: 21-year-old 'N Sync star Justin Timberlake and 22-year-old
Backstreet Boy Nick Carter have just released their first solo albums. With
bubblegum dance pop faltering on the charts, the boys are trying to breathe new
life into their careers by moving in a more mature direction.
Justin is the youngest, cutest, and most prominent member of boy-band nation:
he's the one who got to date Britney, and he's also the one most likely to make
a George Michael transition from teen idol to respectable pop star. He was the
lead songwriter on the most recent (and best) 'N Sync album, Celebrity
(Jive), which featured inspired collaborations with A-list producers BT and the
Neptunes. Working with the Neptunes production team, he was responsible for the
'N Sync hit "Girlfriend," so it's not surprising that the same players are on
board for his new Justified (Jive).
The Neptunes have spent most of the last year concentrating on their own
outrageous rock band, N.E.R.D., who just won the second annual Shortlist Prize
for their debut album, In Search Of . . . (Virgin). On
the first single from Justified, "Like I Love You," they cue up a
slammin' hard-funk drumbeat that borders on rock, and they turn the hardcore
rappers Clipse loose in the outro. Justin starts the song off whispering
come-ons, then quickly slides into a smoky R&B croon; eventually he works
his way up to an exaggerated falsetto. The hooks are even more obscure than
those on the Neptunes' previous foray into reductivist teen pop, Britney's "I'm
a Slave 4 U." But the groove is unstoppable, and Justin's vocals put his
loverboy act across.
Like George Michael before him, Timberlake has emerged from his teen-pop years
with the voice of a blue-eyed soul man: he grew up in Memphis, and he says his
favorite singers are Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Figure in his well-honed
dance moves and it's no wonder many pop fans accused him of aping Michael
Jackson when he debuted "Like I Love You" at the MTV Video Music Awards a few
months ago. There's more where that came from on Justified, especially
on the liquid bounce of "Rock Your Body," the Neptunes' sharpest MJ homage
since No Doubt's "Hella Good."
And though the Neptunes' rhythm tracks are some of the edgiest and most
dangerous in contemporary pop, their Virginia homeboy Timbaland puts up some
stiff competition on Justified with the four tracks he produced (the
Neptunes are credited with seven). He turns up the heat on "(And She Said) Take
Me Now," which starts off with a funky stab of clavinet and a seductive whisper
from guest vocalist Janet Jackson. The stormy ballad "Cry Me a River" is
Justin's most soulful performance since the 'N Sync hit "Gone"; it's also the
album's most nuanced production.
Given its 63-minute length, the disc does come up a little short on hooks. And
Timberlake's songwriting tends to be more professional than passionate. But
he's got the voice to go with his looks, and his tastes are quite a bit more
adventurous than you might expect from a charter member of a middle-of-the-road
boy band.
Nick Carter
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Like Timberlake, Nick Carter was the youngest and cutest member of his group --
but the ratio of melody and bombast to groove and attitude is much more
favorable on his new Now or Never (Jive) than it is on Justified.
The album isn't as sonically ambitious as Justified, and since its
October 29 release, it hasn't been as strong a contender on the
Billboard charts -- unlike Justified, it failed to crack the Top
10 the week it came out. Carter's appeal is more generic; he never dated
Britney; he likes rock better than hip-hop; and he still seems happy to play by
the old teen-pop rules.
That's not such a bad thing on the first single from Now or Never, "Help
Me," which amounts to a Backstreet song with one boy on the microphone instead
of five. The unobtrusive soft-rock beat is familiar, as are the hopeful
coming-of-age lyrics: "Help me make the right decisions/Know which way to turn,
lessons to learn/And just what my purpose is here." Those aren't Carter's
words, but he did have a hand in writing five of the album's 12 tracks. His
most sympathetic writing partner is producer Gary Clark, who contributes the
disc's most mature song, "My Confession."
Nick's secret weapon is the same as it's been since the early Backstreet days:
Swedish songwriter/producer Max Martin, who wrote the catchiest material on the
album. Martin's pop-metal roots are no secret, but this is the first time he's
brought his rock skills to bear on a pop project. Def Leppard producer Per
Aldeheim plays the loudest rock-guitar riffs teen pop has ever heard on "Blow
Your Mind," and the rhythm section from the Swedish death-metal band Ebony
Tears makes a cameo on the track. Martin switches over to an electro groove on
the verses, and Nick has a blast with the song's psycho-girlfriend lyrics. It's
purely a matter of taste, but I'll take Nick's "Beat It" over Justin's "Rock
with You" any day.
THE BRITISH POP TRIO BBMak released their first album, Sooner or
Later (Hollywood), two years ago, at the height of the boy-band boom. It
yielded the hit "Back Here," which showcased the group's intricate vocal
harmonies but stayed away from the usual dance-pop instrumentation. When they
hit the road with both Britney and 'N Sync, it became even more evident that
they weren't your average boy band: instead of prancing around the stage, they
strummed acoustic guitars and threw in a few rock covers. Group members Stephen
McNally, Christian Burns, and Mark Barry sang about puppy love and reveled in
their youthful good looks, but they also showed skill as musicians.
Closer investigation revealed that Sooner or Later was
executive-produced by alternative-rock veteran Rob Cavallo, whose credits
include Green Day's landmark Dookie (Reprise) and the last couple of Goo
Goo Dolls albums. Cavallo plays the same role on BBMak's new Into Your
Head (Hollywood), which pushes even farther in a rock direction. The group
wrote the disc's first single, "Out of My Heart," with fellow Northern England
natives Tony and Chris Griffiths of the early-'90s Britpop band the Real
People. As the song's pedigree suggests, it's a bittersweet roots-rocker with a
huge chorus, a tasteful slide-guitar solo, and little evidence of any boy-band
roots.
BBMak wrote more than half the songs on their first album, and they get a
songwriting credit on every track here. The highlight is the inspirational
"Staring into Space," which recalls vintage Teenage Fanclub with its sunny
harmonies and sophisticated arrangements. The group offer up a convincing
variation on the Goo Goo Dolls-style folk-rock lament with "Get You Through the
Night," which breaks into a fancy chamber-pop vocal interlude halfway through.
The UK rock community probably isn't ready to accept them as a full-fledged
Britpop group, but it's getting difficult to call their music by any other
name. And the Brits certainly didn't have any trouble accepting Robbie
Williams, the former Take Four teen-pop star, as a grown-up rocker reinvented
as a mainstream Britpop sensation.
Like Now or Never, BBMak's Into Your Head isn't doing very well
on the charts. Which isn't surprising: BBMak's unassuming roots pop isn't the
most commercial style on the market, and the hype surrounding Justified
hasn't trickled down to the rest of boy-band nation. Still, a couple of other
significant boy-band albums are coming out this month. O2 (J Records) is
the new disc from O-Town, who formed on the ABC-TV series Making the
Band and went on to have their homonymous J Records debut certified
platinum. Like many of their teenage peers, O-Town were more involved in the writing of their
sophomore effort. The first single, "These Are the Days," is a melancholy
ballad that sports a more organic, less processed sound than anything on
O-Town.
But the best boy-band single of the season comes from one of the most
commercially irrelevant of the boy bands: LMNT, who were formed by original
O-Town member Ikaika Kahoano and a few stray Making the Band
semifinalists. LMNT's first album, All Sides (Atlantic), came out at the
beginning of the summer, and they've since parted ways with the label. But not
before their harmony-rich lite-rocker "Juliet" (as in, "I just want you to
know, I wanna be your Romeo") went into rotation on Radio Disney, where it's
been spinning ever since.
"Juliet" was written and produced by Fredrik Thomander and Anders Wikstrom, a
talented duo of Max Martin protégés who showed up a couple of
years late to the teen-pop party. Their Swedish corporate-rock roots run even
deeper than Martin's: Wikstrom was in the '80s pop-metal band Treat, who
released three albums in the US. Thomander and Wikstrom have more than one
infectious Radio Disney hit on their résumé: they also wrote "I
Say Yeah" for the nascent underage boy band Dream Street.
The first Dream Street album, Dream Street (Edel), recently went gold
with little mainstream radio play, just as four of the group's five members
quit in a contract dispute. That didn't stop their lone remaining teen pin-up,
Chris Trousdale, from signing a new record deal under the name Dream Street, or
from starring in an upcoming kids' movie about the group, The Biggest
Fan. A new line-up has yet to be assembled, but the soundtrack, which
includes the new single "With All My Heart," is due on Columbia later this
month. Which just goes to show that though teen pop may have lost some of its
momentum in 2002, there are still plenty of teen-poppers with music, and money,
to make, and a large core group of fans who are more than willing to go along
for the ride.
Issue Date: November 15 - 21, 2002
