Source: Lexington Herald Leader
Posted on Sun, Jun. 12, 2005 By Jamie Gumbrecht (HERALD-LEADER CULTURE WRITER)
Backstreet Boys
Never Gone | ***
Confession time.
You used to like the Backstreet Boys, back in the days before Bright Eyes and Good Charlotte, back when TRL ruled your after-school plans, back when all your fantasies involved a boy, a rose and a spotlight dance.
Or maybe you slyly played-Millennium on your headphones at work, or waited in line for concert tickets because "the kids begged."
Uh huh.
If you muster the courage to admit your past, you might be pleased with your future. (And if BSB really made you gag the first time they pervaded pop culture, well, please disregard.)
The Backstreet Boys' new release, Never Gone, isn't bad. And for a boy-band comeback, it might be stellar.
The Boys avoid the worst possible scenario: cover songs, remixes of old material, and teen-idol tracks that should have been on discs produced back when they were teenagers.
Instead, Never Gone matured just as the Boys did, without straying too far from the genre that sold 73 million albums worldwide. The songs accommodate their older, rougher vocals, and the group added more soul, especially in Weird World and My Beautiful Woman.
The tunes are just as singable as the old ones, with catchy choruses, easy-to-remember lyrics and nice harmonies. If there's any backlash, it's likely to be the complaint that there's no obvious track good for dancing and shrieking. Many BSB fans will never really grow out of that.
The Backstreet Boys haven't embarrassed themselves with Never Gone. You don't have to be embarrassed, either.