Backstreet Boys: 30 years of the global pop phenomenon that started with a newspaper ad

“I saw two guys and they were really bad,” Kevin told “Rolling Stone” magazine. “And that made me sad. And I said ‘you know what? I have a cousin who leaves his skin while singing’”. And called Brian Littrell (18 years). At 2 p.m. on April 19, 1993, Littrell received an urgent call from Kevin. I was in American history class. At 9 p.m., Brian auditioned by phone. The next day, at 6 am, he flew to Orlando to officially join the group. On April 20, 1993, the fastest-selling boy band in pop music history was born: the Backstreet Boys. The name was decided by Pearlman. It came from an outdoor flea market in Orlando and also from a place frequented by young people: Backstreet Market.

“Two weeks later, I was playing in front of 5,000 people”

“I guess the guys liked me,” Littrell told Rolling Stone magazine, recalling the “blind audition” he conducted over the phone. “Because two weeks later I was playing in front of 5,000 people.” He was referring to Backstreet Boys’ first concert, May 8, 1993 at Sea World, a theme park in Orlando. They sang for high school students celebrating their prom night. Howie Dorough recalled on ‘Allure’: “That night we wore leather biker jackets, jeans and white t-shirts. And that was our first “look”.

They would spend the rest of the summer perform at malls, restaurants and charity galas. And while they were building a powerful legion of fans, Pearlman was trying to land them a record deal. I had nothing to do. Because two executives from Zomba / Jive Records, after seeing them play in an institute in Cleveland, signed them in February 1994. A few months later, the five young people flew to Sweden to record some songs with Max Martin and Dennis PoP. One of them was We’ve got it goin’ on, which ended up being their first single.

Success did not come overnight. In fact, this first single was released in the United States in August 1995 aroused no interest and all promotional plans in the country have been canceled. However, in Europe, the reverse happened: the theme gave the band its first gold record in Germany. They have also been successful in the UK. The first album was released only in the spring of 1996, the eponymous Backstreet Boys, which swept through a dozen countries. Again, with 500,000 copies sold in Germany, they obtain their first platinum disc. Until 1997, and after having distributed more than 8.5 million of this first CD, they did not begin to generate interest in the United States. The success was enormous: it became one of the greatest debuts ever published. And on the first step towards the great phenomenon that has revolutionized the music market.

Today, with over 130 million records worldwide, the Backstreet Boys are the best-selling boy band of all time.. And Pearlman, who also created NSYNC, ended his days in prison charged with fraud and fraud, one of the largest in the United States. The members of the group he had founded in Orlando, They were the first to complain. Considered one of the greatest crooks in history, in 2008, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died in 2016.

Every April 20…

Like Celtas Cortos, the Backstreet Boys also celebrate every April 20 on their social media. Year after year, they post tweets recalling the date: “On this day in 1993, we became the Backstreet Boys and our lives have changed forever”. Or: “We went from performing in high school gymnasiums to leading a world tour this summer.”. In their 2018 post, they confessed, “If you had told us that 25 years later we would still be making music together, we would never have believed you.”