It's the Backstreet Boys world - we just live in it

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: Sep 12, 2099 Source: Entertainment Weekly Submitted By: EiTaK13@aol.com For all its surprising cross-demographic appeal, not everybody has succumbed to the tidal wave of teen pop sweeping America. "I feel like the 5-year-olds have spoken - and let 'em, if they want Britney, or Barney, or whatever." Says Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins. "I guess we were a contributing factor, and I feel a little bit guilty for starting the whole thing," confesses Spice Girl Melanie C., campaigning for clemency before her more mature solo album comes out this fall. "I feel like it's a conspiracy, like someone's playing a joke on us," says Fieldy, the bassist for Korn, grumpily speaking for many a mystified rocker. "I don't get this era of music right now. I watch it all with a frown." Maybe Fieldy should take up beef with his band's managers, who also happen to shepherd - you guessed it - the five Millennium meisters who are the unquestioned rage of the nation. As the record industry unleashes its flood of new releases into the lucrative fall market, even optimistic label execs would have to concede it's the Backstreet Boys' world, and the rest of the pop and rock community just shreiks, screams, cries and quivers in it. Teen pop's quintessential poster boys just passed the seven-times-platinum mark with Millennium, beating any sophomore skepticism to prove that at minimum, they're a two-megahit wonder. But while they're selling CDs as fast as they can press 'em - at a rate of 200,000 plus a week - they're selling zero concert tickets right now. As in zilch. In an unprecedented move that couldn't have been any craftier if it'd been choreographed by Fosse, the Backstreet Boys put the dates for all 39 cities on their upcoming 11-week American arena tour on sale Aug. 14, grossing a reported $30 million in the hour or so it took every last ticket to get snatched. The world's biggest simultaneous selling out - great publicity coup, right? "We had, unfortunately, a lot of disappointed fans. That actually wasn't a good thing," says Strauss Zelnick, chief of BMG Entertainment, home of the Boys and other teen pop titans. "You can't believe the letters I got." Death threats from ticketless grade-schoolers aside, it's all good for the Backstreeters. And any malcontents hoping teen pop will disappear as quickly as it arrived are going to have to wish a lot more hardbodies than just Nick, AJ, Howie, Brian, and Kevin into the cornfield. Boy Band N'Sync also hit the 7 million mark with their debut, with no signs that their fall follow-up, No strings attached, shouldn't do the same. The did-she-or-didn't-she chatter about Britney Spears hasn't slowed her down on her way to 6 million albums and counting. Spears' fellow ex-mouseketeer Christina Aguilera recently knocked the Boys out of first place on the album chart with her debut. And the newly released album from LFO (purveyors of the simpering hit "Summer Girls" and its shameless shout-out to Abercrombie and Fitch) should ensure the youth brigade won't lack for a fresh-faced reinforcement. With the kid crowd set to dominate retail's front racks through Christmas, superstar releases geared to fickle Gen-Xers and boomers - from the like of Bush, Counting Crows, Sting, Live, et al. - seem less certain than ever in a buisness that's banished "sure thing" from its vocabulary. Even Fiona Apple and Beck begin to take on a classic-rock patina next to the teen pop crop. Small wonder that in the ad campaign for the first single from her November Album, a very blond, very bare-waisted Mariah Carey appears to be turning herself into a ringer for Britney or Christina before our very eyes. Hip-hop expected to take over again come December, when mostrous releases from Jay-Z and DMX hit the street. And new Korn and Rage Against the Machine records will certainly recharge 1999's "extreme rock" juggernaut. But until then, it looks like all teens, all the time. So what, you may wonder, happened to the good old days when New Kids on the Block were a punchline? Did the grunge revolution teach us anything? Well, yes: that it's difficult to foster mass disillusionment when the economy is swell, and that in a pinch even postgrads will take a combination of innocence, bump-n-grind Broadway flash, and cute navels over navel gazing. "I'm not saying it's 40-year-olds yet, but the age of (teen pop record buyers) keeps skewing a little bit older," says MTV's senior VP of music and talent, Tom Calderone - who knew things were big when 15,000 Backstreet fans camped outside the networks Time Square HG kept him from going to work. Record industry publicist David Milliman remembers when teen magazines like 16 and Bop were screaming for new stars to cover in the early '90s - and not getting 'em. "Labels used to have trouble with these acts because they're not what anybody wanted to admit they listen to. It's only now that it's so big there's a shabby retro-chic feel to the whole thing: 'Oh of course I love it, it's a guilty pleasure.' But a single like the Backstreet Boys' 'I want it that way' isn't a guilty pleasure at all - its just a pleasure." If there's less guilt on the fan side, there's less among the performers, too. "Remember David Cassidy? Or the end of the New Kids, when all of them were trying so hard not to be teen idols?" says one music-biz veteran. "You don't see these new acts distancing themselves from their success or having disdain for their preteen fans. Britney and Christina and the Backstreet Boys love being pop stars. They're not trying to say, 'Really, when I go home, all I listen to is Method Man.'" Concert promoters are as cheerful as retailers about the teen pop breakthrough. "The Backstreet Boys' tour is an incredible phenomenon," exults Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the live-music trade. Ditto for Ricky Martin, another fall-tour smash who, like the Boys, can sell as many tickets as he cares to put on sale. "It's encouraging because the acts that have been the biggest ticket sellers are still the acts that came along in the '60s and '70s - Pink Floyd, Elton, the Stones, Clapton - and soone or later they're gonna wear out and drop off the scene." Not that he today's live wires to bet the next Dead. "It's a huge challenge for the Backstreet Boys to maintain a career longevity, because you've got to ask yourself, Where's Debbie Gibson? Where's Tiffany? New Kids went from a stadium act to not even being able to sell out clubs three years later." Big deals, figures RCA senoir VP or A&R Ron Fair, who hopes for a 30-year run with Aguilera but has no problem with anyone else enjoying a 30-month run. "People are quick to say, 'Yeah, but how long will it last?' But that's not necessarily the goal. People's appetites for recording artists are moving at a much faster pace than they used to. Whether this wave of teen pop stands the test of time doesn't incalidate it for now. It's relevant now." Forgettable now, too, some would say. But not every member of the older guard is suspicous. No less a cynic than Randy Newman sang Aguilera's praises after watching her perform "Genie in a bottle" on UPN's recent Summer Music Mania '99 special. "I think she's gonna be aournd," he says. "And that song is a hit song in 1963, '73, '83 - whatever." Hey, if Newman can look teendom in the eyes and say I love it wh oare you to say I don't want it that way? Comment on this item. Recent Comments Submitted by: oem software T9zxAE 52. "The road will be overcome by that person, who goes." I wish you never stopped and be creative - forever..! Comment on this item. Next Item: Back To The Future Prev Item: The Backstreet Boys are not my favorite boy band!