On January 10, 2019, Westlife returned with "Hello My Love". Soon after, on January 25, the backstreet boys released their new album "DNA" after 6 years of absence, and the european and American teenagers who once came to life more than 20 years later have given birth to new life, which has excited fans around the world and reminded us of the beautiful youth memories created by the male gods of the millennium era.
Today's Backstreet Boys. Photo/Visual China
Young and promising, the benchmark of popular music
West side boys can be described as a legendary boy band in the European and American music scenes, this Irish men's singing group was founded in 1998, and has created too many myths since its debut. Founding members include Cheon Egan, Shane Finan, Mark Fihely, Nicky Born, and Brian McFadan (singled). The West Side Boys have 14 singles recorded in the UK, ranking third in history behind Elvis Presley and the Beatles. They are also the only group to have won "Album of the Year" 4 times in the UK.
Xicheng Boys not only ignited the enthusiasm of young people in Europe for popular music, they as a Chinese music fan of European and American pop music enlightenment band, but also for many post-80s, post-90s bring freshness and surprises, their classic golden songs such as "my love", "swear it again", "you raise me up", "home" and so on to accompany the youth of a generation of people.
Backstreet Boys are the pioneers of the American boy band, founded in 1993 in Orlando, Florida, with members Nick Carter, Hoy Dorov, Brian Dorov, and Brian Scott. Letterl, Alexander James McLean, Kevin Richardson. As the longest-lived boy band in history, they have sold 38 million records in the United States so far, with global sales of 130 million copies, pioneering the American teen pop (teen pop) style, and pushing teen pop culture to the world, followed by Britney Spears, Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber are all influenced by it.
The Backstreet Boys have been nominated for 7 Grammy Awards and 26 International Music Awards, and they also hold 2 Diamond records and 53 Platinum certifications. In recognition of their tremendous contributions to the U.S. recording industry, the Backstreet Boys were successfully inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
Boys to men, to the team have experienced storms
Young fame always encounters ups and downs, and flowers and praise are often behind many hardships. Teen pop is finally about to transition to adult contemporary style, and backstreet boys and West side boys face unprecedented challenges.
West Side Boys Early Cover. Graph source network
The first is the transformation of musical style. West side boys are good at cover classics, backstreet boys are good at teen pop, as the group grows, the team members are no longer "boys", in order to better cope with the global pop music trend, the two major boy bands have made completely different combination adjustments, but also brought a different story twist.
Four years after their debut, the West Side Boys innovated, adhering to the combination of classics and popular music styles, and vividly exerting their strong singing strength to pay tribute to barry Manilo's classic love song "Mandy". Through their mature cover singing skills, they showed strong musical control, adapted the classics more popular, and successfully turned the original champion single into the 12th champion single of the West Side Boys, who bravely marched forward on the road of the legendary boy band.
In the same period, the backstreet boys experienced a period of silence, due to the sharp decline in the teen pop trend and the increase in the age of the group, the backstreet boys are constantly looking for more mature musical performances. After 5 years of polishing, until the release of the "Never Gone" album in 2005, Backstreet Boys completely subverted the previous Teen pop dynamic dance music route and added more adult rock style. In the popular combination of mature r&b, they tear off the label of singing and dancing idol group, excellent singing skills and harmony to interpret the song more plump and sexy, showing a different mature man charm. The album became the third-best album in the United States with 293,000 copies sold in its first week.
Backstreet Boys early album covers. Graph source network
The challenge also comes from the combination itself. On the road of music, the two major boy bands have faced the storm of the dissolution of the team members. After "Mandy", Brian of the West Side Boys announced that he chose to leave the team for family reasons, and the team chose to continue in the form of 4 people, but the downturn of the new song made the West Side Boys face another challenge.
Faced with difficulties, Irish boys chose to inspire the way forward, and the inspirational divine song "Youraise me up" won the bi-weekly championship as soon as it was released, and they regained the courage to adapt the classic Irish song to move the world. The good times did not last long, the young people of the town turned into legendary superstars, and the boys had grown up, and on October 20, 2011, the West Side Boys suddenly announced the dissolution on the official website. The dissolution announcement swept through the music scene like a storm, leaving only the fans' regrets. Seven years later, on October 3, 2018 (Dublin time), the story took another turn for the worse, with West Side Boys announcing on Twitter that the four members would return and launch a new album, and now they have finally fulfilled their contracts.
Unlike the West side boys' parting ways, the departure of the backstreet boys is more "brotherly". In 2006, the captain of the Backstreet Boys chose to leave the team for personal reasons after 13 years of the group's debut, which shocked the fans of the Backstreets, the Backstreet Boys also set off as a 4-person team to launch two albums of "Unbreakable" and "This is Us", the Backstreet Boys tried to explore more diverse musical styles with the most authentic attitude, the album combined electronic, rock, guitar, hip hop and street rap styles, refreshing, and invited Latin rapper pitbull These attempts have brought the duo back to life, showing the exuberant vitality of the popular group.
6 years later, when the Backstreet Boys toured, they surprised the return of former member Kevin Richardson, and the group was reunited again as a 5-member group, and released the eighth album "in a worldlike this" with deep brotherhood, and then fixed the smooth transition of the 5-member group, and finally released the new album "DNA" this year.
Then the challenge is great
However, now the global music market young and active boy band continues, new fans emerge, for the post-80s, post-90s as the main audience of The West Side boys and backstreet boys, 2019 is really challenging, how to highlight the charm of the uncle in front of young fans and gain more fan attention? The two boy bands still submitted different answers.
Today's West Side Boys. Photo/Visual China
Xicheng Boys reorganized ten years later, still Bao Chuxin brought "hello mylove" to pay tribute to their classic "my love", and more with the company's Huang Boss (ed Sheeran) arrangement and production, dynamic rhythm combined with strong rhythm drums, familiar West Side boys music style, so that Xicheng boys exude sunshine vitality. As their main audience is still concentrated in The European region, the new song took second place on the Irish Music Chart (irma), number 2 on the Scottish Singles Albums Chart, number 10 on the Swedish Music Chart (severigetopplistan) and number 13 on the UK Singles chart.
On the distant American continent, the nostalgic backstreet boy immediately released a new album "DNA". The album's lead song was released early in May 2018. Different from the traditional pop music style, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" combined with a new electronic pop music style, the new song was released and swept the world, after the official release of MV on May 17, it broke through the first place in iTunes downloads, and successfully landed on the music charts in Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the United States and other music charts. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" has been nominated for the 2019 Grammys for Best Pop Duet/Group.
Released after 6 years, the new album "DNA" broke through their 18-year album on billboard200 (Billboard album chart), and the success of this "best album" was due to the variety of musical styles, with the help of different gold medal producers, each single is very distinctive. "The way it is" shows the iconic harmony of the backstreet boys, the distinctive style of modern pop combined with the retro singing voice, the mature true and false tone conversion, making the song more delicate and exuding the sexy charm of the mature uncle. The song "New Love" shows the bass range of male harmony, and the lyrics that point to the heart truly describe the inner monologue of mature men.
After the release of the album and single, the two legendary groups will start touring in 2019. After the performance in Las Vegas, the Backstreet Boys will begin their world tour in May. To celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, the West Side Boys are expected to tour the UK and Ireland. Concert tickets sold 400,000 tickets in just 48 hours, setting a new record for the fastest sales since the group formed. After the first three shows sold out, they added a number of concerts in the UK.
The boy who guarded the year has transformed into a mature uncle handsome return, which is a beautiful gift for the long-awaited fans themselves, but for the post-00s and post-10 groups, is the charm of the male god still there? Let's wait and see.
□ Taylor (Music Critic)
Beijing News editor Wu Longzhen