LISTEN BELOW:
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (or a late 90's boyband rising from the bargain bin at Walmart), the Backstreet Boys are returning to the pop music landscape with a brand new single and album.
Technically that's incorrect, since they really never broke up. They just took a five-year hiatus after their greatest hits, then came back with a minor hit and album in 2005, then returned with a massive flop called Unbreakable in 2007.
Anyway, they are hoping to avoid another failure in the US (they are huge everywhere else, especially in Japan) with the lead single "Straight Through my Heart". It precedes the album This Is Us, due for an October 6th release.
Now, considering their song title history ("Drowning", "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely", "All I Have To Give"), it would be safe to assume this new song would be a drippy, lush pop ballad with more love metaphors than a stack of Hallmark cards.
Actually, one part of that description is right, because a Backstreet song wouldn't be a Backstreet song without drippy love metaphors.
What's considerably different is their sound. Gone is the 90's Swede-driven bubblegum pop (that frankly still sounds good) from their heyday and the angsty adult contemporary fluff of their later albums. With the help of Lady Gaga producer RedOne, the boys are taking it to the clubs. "Straight Through The Heart" is your typical synthy dance jam. Probably realizing it's the Backstreet Boys, the heavy beats that were present on Gaga's albums aren't present, which helps in making this song believable. Production alone, this is surprisingly contemporary and very good.
To their credit, the boys sound just like they did ten years ago. The fluidity and seamless fusion of their voices is refreshing, especially since there is no presence of Auto-Tune (hear that, if you are a good singer, you don't need Auto-Tune). Also static from the past is the lyrics, which are cheesy and cliched as ever. This time around, they sing about a predatory female who shoots them through the heart, a transparent metaphor about love (I won't even bother examining it, although I'll say that others have done it much better, including their past selves). The most interesting lyric is the "soldier down" line (which was the original title), which I didn't get at first, until I realized they imagine themselves as fallen soldiers. A lofty comparison, if you ask me.
While I'll be the first to ask why these four guys (remember Kevin left a while back) are still trying to recapture glories that have long past, I will also admit that this isn't a fruitless effort. The boys, after two failed attempts, have updated their sound without losing their original output or appearing out of their depth.
Backstreet may finally be back.
3 comments:
That was actually a very fair assessment of the Backstreet Boys. I'm glad there are some people that are not dismissing them because they are a "boyband." I hope they actually do get the airtime and the respect they deserve this time around.
THANK YOU for this review! you are the first one who's done their homework when it comes to the Backstreet Boys history. Just the fact that you mentioned that they did not break up, and mentioned their 2 last albums made it SOOO much better than every review out there!
I also think that this new single (and album) will bring them back to the charts in the US! Straight Through My Heart is HOT!
Interestingly, their last album which you did not even mention, Unbreakable, sold around 1.5 million units worldwide. While this may appear to be a "flop" compared to their own previous megasellers (1.2 million in one week in US alone), this would not on any level be considered a flop for the majority of standard making a living artist around the world. This is why JIVE has not dropped them. They are making money for themselves and their label. I personaly prefer the music on their last two albums, I never listen to radio at all. But they want to be "relevant" whatever that term means to the mainstream music media-so I'm happy they are getting attention with their latest outing-Soldier Down-Straight Through My Heart.
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