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4-21-03

Now or Never review (Fireworks- UK rock magazine)

By Gill Hosie

Most of us shouldn't know who Nick Carter is and those of us who do

are probably wondering why he is getting reviewed in Fireworks. Well,

Nick Carter is a member of the Backstreet Boys and this is his first

solo album and it rocks with the best of them!

The album kicks off with his debut single, "Help Me." This is a

catchy pop/rock tune (co-written by Von Grooves' Matthew Gerrard)

which had caught my attention several times while channel surfing

through the music channels on satellite.

The next track is "My Confession" and you now start to gradually feel

the album going along a more rockier road. By the time I reach track

3, I was gobsmacked - "I Stand For You" is an out and out rocker with

catchy chorus and power chords. "Girls in the USA" is absolutely

amazing. Imagine a mix of Def Leopard ("Pour some sugar...) with

early Danger Danger and throw in a touch of nu-breed. Pure stadium

rock.

The rock vein continues all the way through with the likes of "Is it

Saturday yet?" and "Blow Your Mind." One thing to mention - on

several of the tracks the first 30 or 40 seconds sound a bit weird,

but once they get going they do literally blow your mind!

Things do lighten up slightly, however, with a few ballads thrown

into the mix. Do not expect Backstreet Boys type ballads. These are

pure power ballads. "Do I Have To Cry For You" is reminisent of early

Bryan Adams whilst the awesome "Heart Without a Home" is a pure AOR

(Album Oriented Rock) classic. "Miss America" is another one of my

faves. Lyrically not one for the teenyboppers, but it has a slightly

sensual sound to it - kinda reminds me of Prince circa "Purple Rain."

My only criticism of the album is Nick's voice which is a bit weak

for my tastes. I much prefer a more manly voice, and had the ballads

of "Miss America" been sung by the likes of James Christain or Stan

Bush, then the whole AOR scene would have been raving about them.

But this IS a great album. Don't let the fact that he is in a boyband

put you off. I don't know if he's just trying to be trendy since

rock's on a comeback or if he's finally getting a chance to do the

kind of songs that he likes. The latter I hope and I look forward to

the next one.

Try it. I made the editor listen to it for awhile before I told him

who it was. He was so shocked that he asked me to review it!

2-07-03

Now or Never review (Popstar!)

For some reason, Nick Carter's solo debut didn't capture the same attention or sales as Justin Timberlake's, in spite of their parallel positions as boy-band leaders and label mates. But fans of BSB (and even non-very-big fans of BSB) should rejoice that Nick did a very different album than Justin's -- and that he did it his way. First, where Justin's CD is R & B, Nick's is much more grounded in rock and pop. His lead single "Help Me" has a terrific urgency and universal message that should have resonated with radio, but programmers were too anti-BSB to give it a chance. MTV did much better with the sexy video -- because fans have a big voice in the form of TRL. "Do I Have to Cry For You" is the teary follow-up, and it's probably the least interesting track [it's practically a remake of "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" by Bryan Adams or "All or Nothing" by O-Town... or "Drowning" by BSB]. It's still a beautiful ballad, but Nick's raspy voice is best used on rollicking rock like "Girls in the USA". The best overall song is "I Got You" and the most exciting departure is the '80s electro-fuelled "Blow Your Mind". Now if we could only interview him for you guys... maybe someday!

*Check out the scans here

1-13-03

Now or Never review (Herald Sun, Australia)

While other members of the Backstreet Boys have been in rehab or starting a family, blondie Nick Carter is the first to start a solo career. Revealing a rock edge, Carter endeavours to break away from the mushy pop pigeonhole. The transition from boyband member to pop rocker starts well, with patriotic tunes such as Girls in the USA and Miss America. Impressively, Carter co-wrote most tracks, and has the vocal versatility to switch from bland boyband harmonies to stirring solo vocals. With plenty of guitars, drums and Bon Jovi impersonations on Blow Your Mind and I Stand for You, Carter sheds his boppy image. But ballads such as Do I Have to Cry for You and Heart Without a Home are sappy, country tinged misses. The guitar-laced Help Me is ordinary, yet Carter has the talent and fanbase to succeed as a solo artist.

Now or Never Review -AllMusic.com

Released within the same month that fellow teen-popsters Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake made their bid for street-cred and adult stardom, Nick Carter's Now or Never finds the Backstreet Boys singer hewing closely to his band's signature sound for his solo debut. There are certainly a couple of indications that Carter would like be considered as the adult he is, but instead of radically shifting musical direction and public persona, he's taking it easy, letting some newer beats filter into the rhythms and delving into some stronger sexual entendres. Ultimately, these are small, subtle shifts — especially compared to Xtina's Stripped and JT's Justified — which means that this is more musically familiar, if less interesting. It holds together better than Stripped (then again, most records do) but pales in comparison to the best of Justified, whose slinky funk seems at once modern and classic. Now or Never, on the other hand, feels largely stuck in 2000, and while the sound is good and the production is consistent throughout, it feels slightly dated and doesn't have enough memorable material (only the ever reliable Max Martin's "I Just Wanna Take You Home" cuts through the murk) to make much of an impression. Say what you will about his fellow aging teen pop idols — they may have fallen on their face or made awkward strides forward, but at least it was interesting. Here, Nick Carter stays on his feet and makes a largely forgettable record. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Now or Never Review (People)

On Carter's solo debut, the baby Backstreeter shows that at 22 he's not a boy, not yet a man. On the cheesy pop-rocker "Is It Saturday Yet?" (one of the five songs he cowrote), he plays to the Nickelodeon crowd with an eigth-grade mentality better befitting his 14-year-old brother, Aaron Carter. Later, on the silly, suggestive "Miss America," he vainly attempts to put some stubble on his smooth-cheeked delivery as he sings, "Take it off, take it off/Let's get it on, get it on." Marvin Gaye he's not. Even worse, though, is when Carter attempts to rock out on cuts such as "Girls in the USA" that make him seem like, at best, a junior Jon Bon Jovi. He's better off sticking to bouncy guitar pop and love ballads like "Who Needs the World" that take him back to Backstreet. --C.A.

"Now Or Never' Review by NYPOST

Backstreeter Nick Carter takes a chance with his first solo record, "Now or Never," combining old-fashioned boy-band catchiness with elements of rock.

It's a formula that doesn't always work, but when it does, it's excellent.

On this album Carter chooses not to rock the Backstreet boat very hard, leaning heavily on the boy-band side of the mix.

But he finally lets loose with "Girls in the USA" which has guitar crunch, power drumming and vocals that seem more influenced by Kid Rock than the kiddie ballads of Carter's past.

His ballads are still pretty poopy, but the rock material which peppers the effort - like "I Just Wanna Take You Home" and "Help Me" - makes you take note.

Had Carter taken a giant step into the realm of rock this would have been a better album, but it still stands as an interesting record by an artist in transition - who hopefully won't regress when he hooks up with his bandmates.

By DAN AQUILANTE

Nick Carter Is Suprisingly Convincing As A Frontman (Barnes abd Nobles review)

"Barnes and Noble has a review of Nick Carter's solo debut album 'Now or Never.' They say on "his urgently titled, rockin' debut, 'Now or Never,' Carter sounds surprisingly convincing as a frontman." Nick charms with "the Bon Jovi–esque 'Miss America.' " In that song, the Backstreet Boys star "cleverly serenades his dream girl with smooth lyrics such as, 'In the land of the free/Make a prisoner of me/Close my eyes and you're all that I see.' " Read the full review here.

EOnline.com 'Now or Never' Review

Now or never? Well, we're leaning toward never as far as Backstreet Boy Nick Carter's solo debut is concerned. Unless you're 12 and you choose CDs based on the crushability quotient of whoever is on the cover, you'll be turned off by Carter's crossover from his "Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)" days to Never's second-rate Sugar Ray pop. Memories of his past remain on "I Got You," however the song also elicits Bryan Adams flashbacks. Otherwise, this trip is full of overly sensitive moments and some really bad geographical rhymes about ladies in "Girls in the USA." Trust us, nobody wants it that way.

Our grade: C-

'Now or Never' Review from USAToday.com ( He can kiss my ass, for what he said about Nick at the end of his review, asshole)

Nick Carter, Now or Never (one and a half star) You can take the boy out of the boy band, but if he's as aggressively passive a presence as Carter, you'll be climbing uphill from there. The Backstreet refugee co-wrote many of these songs, some of them catchy in a generic, innocuous way. But none reveals more personality than Carter's colorless voice; instead, the singer emerges as a kind of wholesomely macho cypher. He's a Bryan Adams-like balladeer on the sappy Do I Have to Cry for You, a Jon Bon Jovi-esque crooner on Heart Without a Home (I'll Be Yours) and a leering frat boy on the witless Girls in the USA. The lyrics are as excruciatingly banal and dopey as the song titles suggest. Surely no one expected Carter to turn into Elvis Costello overnight, but it's hard to listen to the refrain "Take it off, take it off/Let's get it on, get it on" on a full stomach.

— Gardner