Released: Sept. 15, 1998

Rating:

Genre: pop

Quotable: --

Album Tracks:

1. Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)
2. As Long As You Love Me
3. All I Have to Give
4. That’s the Way I Like It
5. 10,000 Promises
6. Like a Child
7. Hey, Mr. DJ (Keep Playin’ This Song)
8. Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
9. That’s What She Said
10. If You Want It to Be Good Girl, Get Yourself a Bad Boy
11. If I Don’t Have You

Sales:

--
600,000
5 million
12 million

Peak:

--
2

Singles/Hit Songs:

• Everybody’s Back (Backstreet’s Back) (8/2/97) #4 US, #3 UK. Platinum single.
• As Long As You Love Me (10/11/97) #4a US, #3 UK, #3 AC
• All I Have to Give (2/14/98) #5 US, #2 UK, #8 AC

In 1996, the Backstreet Boys released their self-titled debut album, which became a big hit overseas, but not in the boys’ native U.S. More than a year later, the States finally took to the Boys in a big way, via their 1997 album named Backstreet Boys, which went on to a monster 10 million + in U.S. sales. However, in a practice notorious in the sixties, especially notable on Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ albums, the album was not the same as its original version. The five singles that had been hits overseas and one album track were cobbled together with six new songs, three of which became U.S. top ten pop hits.

Of course, the international market hardly needed what practically served as a greatest hits after a band had only released one album, so the rest of the world got Backstreet’s Back, which “is nearly identical to Backstreet Boys. Loaded with dance-pop and ballads, the album is as glossy as mainstream pop can possibly be. That slick production adds luster to the singles [like] …As Long as You Love Me, making them as irresistible as teen pop can be. There isn't anything else that really matches… [it], but there's enough craft, hooks, and fun on the rest of the album to make it quite entertaining” (Erlewine).