The Backstreet Boys still larger than life
By Chris Carney

Back in 1992, an unknown, overworked and likely underpaid worker at the Orlando Sentinel filed another entry in the crowded sea of classified ads. What couldn’t be known at the time was that this request for “Singers and Musicians” to audition would lead to one of the best-selling recording groups in history.
 
Thus, in the massive confines of a blimp hangar, was the boy band supergroup The Backstreet Boys spawned. Hundreds auditioned. Five were chosen. Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson, cousins from Lexington, Ken., joined Orlando, Fla., natives A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough and Nick Carter, and the second age of the boy band began.
 
Their success was by no means a guarantee. America was still gripped in the throes of the grunge movement. Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were kings, selling millions of albums, playing arenas and massive festivals like the groundbreaking Lollapalooza Tour and defining a musical generation.
 
It seemed that the Backstreet Boy venture was doomed to fail, but then something odd happened. Their first single, “We’ve Got It Goin’ On,” surged to the top of music charts across Europe. And the group did survive and begin to thrive, and then in 1997 their self-titled debut album hit the American music scene and would go on to sell 14 million copies in the U.S. alone. From then, their rise was nothing less than meteoric.
 
Few bands in American history can lay claim to the achievements of the Backstreet Boys. Starting from that newspaper ad, the Boys went on to sell 75 million albums worldwide, had 13 Billboard Top 40 hits and earned a staggering $533 million in concert receipts.
 
They singlehandedly brought the boy band back to the forefront of American pop music, a spot left dormant since their musical forefathers, The New Kids on the Block. And while the whims of the music buying, concert going public moved on, the Backstreet Boys eventually busied themselves with other ventures. Littrell has gone on to a successful Christian music career. Carter battled addiction, starred on a reality show and began to act in film. McLean and Dorough began a television career. Even the elder statesman Richardson has gone on to a modeling and composing career.
 
Throughout the ups and downs of their careers, legal wrangling with former manager Lou Pearlman and the departure of Richardson, the Backstreet Boys proved to be survivors. They surged to the top of the pop charts and held off would-be pretenders to the boy band crown, with the possible exception of brother band ‘N Sync.
 
They went on to survive the demise of teen pop in the early 2000s only to recently resurface with a new focus on live instruments, a more adult sensibility and a sixth album, Unbreakable, released in 2007. They began touring again, first internationally where they had scored their initial successes and now back home in the States.












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