Black & Blue

In the fickle world of teen-pop, three years is an eternity, so the fact that the Backstreet Boys are not only still around, but still selling records by the truckload, is worth noting. It’s hard to know who to blame for this. We’re long past blaming the five weaselly boy-men themselves, and even the record company schemers who orchestrated this reckless pursuit of the teeny-bopper market never could have meant it to last this long. We blame the fans—the only ones who could’ve prevented this atrocity. But maybe it’s not all their fault; perhaps we have failed as Americans. Shouldn’t we be arming our children with enough knowledge about music, marketing, and media manipulation so that they won’t be vulnerable to this sort of vacuous, manufactured tripe? In fairness, the Backstreet Boys actually represent the top-end of such tripe and Black & Blue’s no less catchy than their previous efforts. But the whole package is put together with such soul-sucking cynicism, it leaves you feeling hollow and wasted.