"MMMBop" by Hanson went to No. 1 in a total of 20 countries and passed the 600,000 sales mark in the UK in 1997, when the Hanson brothers' average age was 14. When the single was at No. 1 in the United States, the group's youngest member, drummer Zachary, was 11 years 6 months old -- just one month older than Michael Jackson was when the Jackson Five went to the top of the US charts with "I Want You Back" in 1970. Hanson's album
Middle of Nowhere has sold about 6 million copies worldwide and been widely acclaimed as a classic pop album. Zachary and his brothers Taylor, the band's 14-year-old vocalist and keyboard player, and Isaac, the 17-year-old guitarist, have all studied classical piano for at least five years and write a proportion of their songs. Now managed by their father, they were spotted at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas by an entertainment lawyer and Grateful Dead fanatic, Christopher Sabec, in 1994. They join a long line of youthful pop stars, including the Osmonds, the Jackson Five, Five Star, Musical Youth, Aaron Carter and Cleopatra."
