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Millennium Review: The best album ABBA never made
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Date: May 20, 2099 Backstreet Boy's newest: The best album ABBA never made By Gred Kot, Tribune Rock Critic It has been 22 years since ABBA redefined the term "guilty pleasure" with the album "Arrival". Though its future as a karaoke-bar classic is assured with such songs as "Dancing Queen" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You." ABBA's flawed monument to the pleasure principle has attracted countless worchipers, ranging from Marshall Crenshaw to Erasure. It's difficult to predict just who, if anyone, will be covering the music of the Backstreet Boys 22 years hence, but here's betting someone with an ear for great pop hooks does. And the album they will look to is the one arriving in stores Tuesday: "Millennium" (Jive). This may come as a startling admission, coming from a listner who has steadfastly resisted the Boys' charms since their arrival from the Land of Disney six years ago. But after weeklong exposure to the horribly titled but musically seductive "Millennium," I can confidently pronounce it is the best album ABBA never made, the "Arrival" of the '90s. Shepherded into existance as New Kids on the Block clones by a Chippendales impresario, their act honed at Sea World and various other family-friendly locales, their songs written and produced in Sweden (just like ABBA!), the Backstreet Boys were stars in Europe and Canada long before preteens began tracking down their unlisted phon numbers in Orlando. When success came -- through a combination of relentless touring and a succession of fresh-faced puppy-love videos -- the floodgates opened. The Boys -- along with their British alter-egos, the Spice Girls -- ushered in a new era of pubescent pop: Hanson, Britney Spears, 'N Sync, B*Witched, 98 Degrees. "Backstreet Boys," the quintet's 1997 breakthrough release (Actually a complication of earlier recordings), is still in the top 50 of the Billboard album chart nearly two years after its release and has sold more than 10 million copies. On that album's big hits -- "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)," "As Long As You Love ME" -- the Boys embodied teendream vulnerability. They were the sensitive-guy yin to the Spice Girls' mildly assertive girl-power yang. No wonder they show up on the cover of their new album dressed in virginal white, as if to annouce that, in time-honored teen-pop fashion, they're more than willing to roll over, have their multiplatinum abs scratched and give their fans more of the same. "It's not that I can't live without you/ It's just that I don't even want to try," they sing on "Back to Your Heart." Sigh. Even when it's time to get tough, on "Don't Want You Back," the tone is almost apologetic: "Forgive my honesty/ But you gotta go." But within the confies of this game -- pleasing the fans with pleasant melodies and reassuring lyrics -- the Boys play it as well or better than any other of their peers. Wereas the Spice Girls' linernotes and interviews have been more entertaining than their cliche-ridden songs and their ordinary voices, whereas 'N Sync and the other boy groups are just New Kids rehashes or over-emoting showoffs, the Backstreet gang makes blue-eyed soul of engaging subtlety. The lithe melodies, many of them written by Swede producer Max MArtin, are packedd with references to earlier classic styles:the finger-snapping cool doowop and streetcorner vocal groups, acoustic guitars that suggest everything from flamenco to Babyface ballads, the elctro-funk of Zapp on the Gap Band, and -- of course -- the Euro-pop of ABBA (notably on "The One") . "Millennium" isn't a stone classic. It runs out of gas about two-thirds of the way through; a handful of cardboard-cutout songs done without Martin's involvement are emblematic of everything wrong with teen pop. But the opening sequence is irresistable: the mildly aggressive, early '80s sci-fi funk of "Larger Than Life"; the way "I Want It That Way" shifts from a hush to a haunted midtempo plea: the canny blend of acoustic guitar and strings that drapes "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" in melancholy. What makes the Boys -- Kevin Richardson, Howard Dorough, A.J. McLean, Brian Littrell and Nick Carter -- more than toleratable is that they sing with such an assured grasp of what used to be called soul music. Whereas groups such as Jodeci and Boyz II Men turn songs into a vocal competition, the Backstreet Boys almost underplay their fine voices. This gives ballads such as "Don't Wanna Lose You Now" an almost hymnlike quality, and "Millennium" stands as a graceful antidote to almost every album vocal showboaters such as Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey have ever made. Wholesome to the end, the Boys may be the first twentysomething virgins in the show-business, judging by their lyrics. What's more surprising is how they manage to stay chaste without sounding sentimental, precious or -- far worse -- calculating. Only the closing "The Perfect Fan" flirts with bathos -- but, heck, it's about singer Brian Littrell's mom. And what's a guilty pleasure without at least one awkward, cringe-inducing moment? The ABBA fan that lurks in all pure-pop fanatics would surely appreciate that.
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