Millennium CD Reviews

Reviewed By: Canoe | Mike Ross

The Backstreet Boys want to "grow" with their fans, lest they go the way of New Kids on the Block (more on them in a moment).

It's been three years since these five Florida hunks sparked a pop revolution. That's an eon when you're a teenager. The difference between 11 and 14 is like day and night - the difference, say, between Backstreet Boys and Marilyn Manson. Ask any parent.

In stores Tuesday, this album is the ultimate test. Have they grown? Yes and no. They're three years older and thus no longer "boys," but the formula remains the same.

As with the last two releases, Millennium comes in two flavours: Fizzy dance numbers and syrupy love ballads, perhaps a little heavier on the syrup this time.

Immaculately produced, as always, this is a perfectly innocuous pop confection. It's a hormone-charged load of cleverly written sweet nothings on the subject of - you guessed it - love, crooned alternately by Kevin, Nick, A.J., Brian or Nick. Pick your fave!

Music can be found amongst the marketing. The best ballad: the cloying but undeniably emotional Back to Your Heart. And the most interesting uptempo track is ironically the darkest: Don't Want You Back - a passionate break-up-and-good-riddance type of song. Sample lyric: "I should've known that I would be another victim of your sexuality." It stands out from the rest of this romantic fare like a goth kid in Disneyland.

Overall, Millennium is unashamedly contrived, expertly rendered and calculated to tug the heartstrings of every young girl in the world. In other words, Backstreet's back - with the same old song and dance.

Reviewed By: E! Online | Staff

Since 'N Sync has raised the bar a notch, the B-Boys have had to polish their act a bit to keep up. Instead of tightly wrapped New Jack Swing, they now offer lovingly manufactured pop balladry. And how do they feel about us? Well, "I Need You Tonight," they say, adding that "No One Else Comes Close" and "It's Gotta Be You." But just in case you think their unabashed romanticism knows no bounds, they can still insist they "Don't Want You Back," sneering as only George Michael imitators can. Ultimately, to critique this stuff is pointless; it comes down to this: "I Want It That Way" and "Don't Wanna Lose You Now" sport hooks that won't leave your head for days, and the closing "The Perfect Fan" is an impressive, choir-backed tribute to mom. In fact, it suggests that the B-Boys have some untapped depth behind their multiplatinum facades.

Reviewed By: MTV | Jason Ferguson

Thirteen pages of pictures. Six pages of merchandise. Three-and-a-half pages of production/player credits. Three pages of thank yous and dedications. Two- and-a-half pages of lyrics. That's how the 22 inside pages of Millennium's booklet break down, which, although certainly not surprising, does give you some indication of what you're dealing with here. The Backstreet Boys are a certified hit phenomenon and no amount of critical backpedaling or musical analysis is gonna change that. They are, to put it simply, huge pop stars that few people over the age of 21 know a thing about.

And that's because few people over the age of 21 can intellectually deal with the Backstreet Boys. It's tough for an "adult" mind to fathom that a group can put out a record like Millennium and have it be accepted, much less successful. It's difficult for an "adult" mind to comprehend that a well-crafted album that paints its songs about love and optimism in broad, bold, and extraordinarily simple strokes could possibly be good. But Millennium is good. So good, in fact, that it's very nearly perfect.

From its crystalline production (most of the recording was done in Sweden, which should tell you something about its mechanized grace) to its phenomenally accessible and unforgivably catchy music (although "It's Gotta Be You" sounds just like that "Everybody" song, it will be stuck in your head and you will be smiling) to its syrupy sweet lyrics (the last words on the album are, swear to God, "I love you Mom"... I know, I'm getting choked up too), Millennium is all about giving the people what they want.

And, apparently, about 1.3 million people wanted it bad enough to snatch up Millennium the very day it came out. That was no accident. Although the dozen songs here show improvement on the formula, it didn't matter. This record didn't need to be better. It didn't need word-of-mouth. It didn't need critical approval. It just needed to be the Backstreet Boys doing what the Backstreet Boys do best. And what they're best at is making relentlessly upbeat pop music that people want to listen to. And if you don't understand, well, too bad for you. It's obvious you're just too old.

Reviewed By: CDNOW | Aidin Vaziri

Teen magazine sales look set to soar as the Backstreet Boys deliver another album of flawless pop radio fodder. But these are slippery times for the reigning American boy-band. Fresh-faced groups like N-Sync, 98 Degrees and Five are threatening to steal their thunder; their original fan base is rapidly approaching puberty; and even old school pin-ups like Jordan Knight and Ricky Martin are back in the game. What's the band who once so confidently proclaimed "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" to do?

On Millennium, Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean, and Kevin Richardson hardly feel the heat. The quintet is teamed with a fail-proof stable of producers including Mutt Lange, Steven Lipson, and, of course, Max Martin -- the Swedish svengali responsible for the successes of Britney Spears and Robyn. These record industry vets provide a seamless pop tapestry for the group to methodically coo and groan over, like well-choreographed music video marionettes.

The tunes fall into two dependable categories -- the quasi-dance numbers ("Larger Than Life," "It's Gotta Be You," etc.) that will find a comfortable home in trendy mall clothing stores and the weepy ballads ("Spanish Eyes," "Don't Wanna Lose You Now," etc.) that will make innumerable young girls misty-eyed over their Nick Carter posters. Neither leaves any lasting impression if you're of age.

Even when the Backstreet Boys themselves are allowed into the songwriting process, as they are on songs like "The Perfect Fan" and "Back to Your Heart," they fail to offer anything more than superficial ear candy. Yes, they're cute, but a little more emotional investment wouldn't have hurt. If they hope to stand up to the more talented 98 Degrees or charismatic Ricky Martin, they're going to have to try much harder.

Reviewed By: Rolling Stone | Arion Bergerp

Prefabricated, too pretty, suspiciously well choreographed -- such objections to the Backstreet Boys wither in the face of singles like the undeniable "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and the sweet soar of "I'll Never Break Your Heart." The Boys follow up their tenfold-platinum debut with an album filled with examples of their forte: New Jack doo-wop and lyrically trivial, rhythmically insistent funk lite. Nick Carter's voice strains on "I Need You Tonight," and the blandishments of "The Perfect Fan" evaporate as the song unfolds, but prepare to pay dance-floor obeisance to "It's Gotta Be You," a blatant "Everybody" rework with the same menacing bass line and disco-funky "whoo-whoo" breaks. The ballad "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" digs its melodic claws into your skull on the first listen -- it's the swooniest blending of the five vocalists' timbres to date, and mighty pretty besides.

Reviewed By: Wall Of Sound | Daniel Durchholz

When the Backstreet Boys released their self-titled debut a couple years back, they pretty much had the teenybopper field to themselves. Hanson and the Spice Girls had primed the pump, it seemed, but it took the Backstreets to produce an honest to goodness bubblegum gusher. That debut is now nearly eight times platinum in America and has sold an astonishing 27 million copies worldwide.

That kind of success breeds imitation, of course, and the Backstreets can't help but notice that the pop scene is suddenly crowded with all manner of new kids on the block — quite literally, in the case of recently hatched solo artists Joey McIntyre and Jordan Knight, plus 'N Sync, Boyzone, 98 Degrees, Latin firecrackers C Note and Ricky Martin, and on the distaff side, Britney Spears.

Given that the Backstreets should be bubblegum's grizzled veterans by the release of their second album, it's surprising to hear how few chances they take on Millennium. Instead, the new album revels in exactly the same elements that made the Backstreet Boys sizzle with testosterone-fueled dance rhythms and boyish charm. It's not that there's nothing to like on the new album — "I Want It That Way" is as dreamy a ballad as you'll hear this year. But it's hard to listen to the opening track, "Larger Than Life," with its bouncy beats and sterile metallic guitars, or the grinding "Don't Want You Back" without thinking of the anything-but-dangerous early '90s output of Michael Jackson.

The only real risks taken by the group on Millennium are behind the scenes. Brian Littrell (the group's Kentucky cousin) and Kevin Richardson (the one with the eyebrows) co-wrote several of the album's 11 songs, including the standard-issue come-back-baby number "Back to Your Heart" and "The One," a Europop trifle that sounds like an outtake from their first album. The Littrell-penned "The Perfect Fan" is hardly the romantic ballad the B-Boys' rabid followers would have hoped for. It's not about the guys' ultimate dream date, plucked straight from the front row and whisked backstage to a waiting limo: It's a song thanking their mothers for raising them right and being there when they needed them. It's nice to know the Boys love their moms, but guys — next time a Hallmark card will suffice.