Backstreet Boys

You probably don’t know his face or his voice. But you definitely know his music. Max Martin, the Swedish genius behind so many hits from the past 25 years, has always been an elusive figure, remaining behind the scenes. He refuses to become any kind of celebrity. Yet he has helped create so many classics, including some on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs list: Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” (which comes in at 357) and the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way” (240). He’s written or co-written 26 Number One hits,…

At the turn of the millennium, the battle lines in the boy band wars were fairly clear. You were either on Team Backstreet Boys or Team ‘N Sync. Some fans took a Switzerland-like stance and professed equal love for both groups, but they were mostly full of shit. Everyone had a favorite. The cold war turned hot when ‘N Sync’s Chris Kirkpatrick and the Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean dated the same woman a couple of years apart. “I wanted to punch A.J.’s lights out for a little while,” Kirkpatrick said years later. “I…

The Night The Beatles Invented Fun Sixty years ago, on February 9, 1964: The Beatles make their legendary American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. A record-shattering 73 million people tune in to see John, Paul, George, and Ringo for the first time. It’s the biggest audience any musicians have ever faced. But there’s no evidence that any of the Fab Four are the least bit worried they might fail. The U.S.A. gets a look at these cocky kids, hears their radical new electric noise, and—crucially—sees a theater full of…

Backstreet’s Back — and so is Lovers & Friends. The Las Vegas music festival announced its 2024 lineup with headlining performances from Backstreet Boys, Janet Jackson, and Usher, who will be performing his career-defining album Confessions in celebration of its 20th anniversary. Scheduled for just one day on Saturday, May 4, at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, the annual nostalgia fest will also feature appearances from Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, Ciara, TLC,…

Former Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was shut down by a Los Angeles judge Wednesday in his bid to dismiss the rape lawsuit filed by former Dream singer Melissa Schuman. Carter, 43, tried but failed to bounce the case on the grounds that Schuman’s claim actually belongs in Las Vegas, where he’s already suing Schuman and two other sex assault accusers for defamation. At a morning hearing in Santa Monica, California, Los Angeles County Judge Lisa Sepe-Wiesenfeld expressed skepticism that Nevada was the best…

There was actually a time when we didn’t need social media to drum up mass hysteria, and the new HBO documentary Time Bomb Y2K is ready and raring to take us back there. This superbly edited dash through pre-millennial anxieties is a time capsule of archive footage — no narrator, no talking heads, no new interviews — from the years and days leading up the year 2000 that had millions worrying a computer glitch could lead to government takeover, nuclear catastrophe, cats and dogs playing together, and any other kind of…