THE BACKSTREETBOYS: This Is Us In Hour.Ca

The Backstreet Boys may have sold 130 millions albums since 1993, but that doesn't mean we gotta like them (former BSB Kevin Richardson also has few kind words for the newly minted quartet). BSB reunite with previous producer Max Martin to recreate their I Want It That Way golden heyday. And it works for just one track: Straight Through My Heart. BSB try to shore up this album with a bonus DVD featuring six of their biggest hits sung live at London's O2 Arena.

This Is Us

While many in the lemming crowd dropped their fanatical lust for the Boys of Backstreet after the first glow of boybandom, I continued to enjoy the groups evolution into the poprock flavored Never Gone and Unbreakable. Both albums were beautifully produced and the last, Unbreakable, showed their harmonies the best they have ever been with several songs cowritten by the Boys showing a depth of maturity and promise that excited me beyond hope for the future! However with This Is Us, the Boys try to rekindle their early Top of the Chart fame with more pop/R&B. And it just doesn't work. Straight Through My Heart is true pop gold. Great lyrics, great beat. The Boys sound wonderful. Masquerade has potential if for no other reason than the off the chain video that could be made! And Bigger, while rather boring on the CD, the video is complete fun--taking place on the streets of Tokyo, in a karaoke bar and a Maid Cafe! Classic. But the other songs just don't take off. Undone comes as close to being as good as any song on top 40-but they had a better version out there and somehow having heard the BEST version of the song-with only Carter singing the solo parts-the CD version is a let down. The rest of the songs have unexciting harmonies and trite silly lyrics. Somehow the Backstreet Boys have missed the lesson that it isn't the genre that determines whether a group has evolved or matured, but the content of the lyrics and message of the music. To see or hear 30 yr old men singing about "shawty" or "booty" is cringeworthy. I think what is the most disappointing in this album is they are better than this. SO much better than this.

So my wish for the next album? I don't care about the genre. I prefer poprock, but pop or R&B is fine IF THE LYRICS REFLECT their ages, their life experiences-both good and bad-and have shown that they've grown up at last. Their fans sure have.

http://www.hour.ca/music/spin.aspx?iIDDisque=5882