AJ McLean Online - Press Archive

Group aims to regain steam after hiatus, defection

They may be older, wiser and short one original member, but the Backstreet Boys are still a hot ticket. Reserved seats for their concert at Ravinia are sold out, and the remaining lawn tickets are going fast.

Just don’t call this a “reunion” tour.

“There are a lot of misconceptions out there,” says founding member Nick Carter, laughing. “People think we broke up or are returning after some time off.”

In fact, other than a two-year hiatus that ended in 2004, the band has continued to record and tour steadily. After 13 years with the group, Kevin Richardson quit in 2006 to pursue other interests. He’s composing the soundtrack for an animated movie, “The Spirit Bear.”
Read the rest of this entry »

This past Friday I, along with several hundred other 20-somethings relived our childhood when seeing the Backstreet Boys’ show at the House of Blues in Atlantic City. Having been performing for the past 15 years, the majority of them now in their 30s, those Boys proved that they still have it goin’ on.

I should preface this review to explain just how hardcore some of my friends and I were dedicated to this band, hopefully not incriminating myself too much in the process. Back during the height of the BSB era two friends stood outside “TRL” with a “Beam Us Up, Carson” sign for hours, one making it on Channel 11’s “News at 11,” being interviewed by a reporter about the pandemonium outside the MTV offices with a record number of fans — think 10 times the extent of Jonas Brothers fans today. Another friend learned the entire “As Long as You Love Me” chair dance, and that’s no easy task — trust me, especially for the uncoordinated like myself. I can’t even do the “Everybody” dance, and I’ve tried many a time.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Backstreet Boys still make girls scream. And the yelps they inspire these days don’t sound grown-up or ironic, either. No, all through Monday’s show at a packed Wolf Trap, the Boys were hit with the sort of meaning-of-life squeals historically reserved for Tiger Beat cover kids. That’s a role they haven’t filled in this century.

Three of the band’s remaining members — Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and A.J. McLean — are in their 30s; the fourth, reality-TV himbo Nick Carter, is a weathered 28. (Kevin Richardson, the oldest original BSB’er, is now 37, but left the group two years ago.) Littrell, who spent the night smirking and giggling, was about the only person on the premises who grasped the goofiness of playing a teen idol so far past one’s teens. But he, like everybody in the Zip code on this night, was having a blast nonetheless.
Read the rest of this entry »

They once scaled music’s highest peaks.
And now the Backstreet Boys are back for another ascent.

A quick review:
The “Boys,” Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and AJ McLean, have sold more than 75 million records worldwide. (Member Kevin Richardson amicably decided to exit the group in 2006.)

Their 1997 “Backstreet Boys” and 1999 “Millennium” CD received the Diamond Award from the recording industry for sales of more than 10 million each.|

The “Millennium” CD dominated the worldwide charts, reaching number one in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.
Read the rest of this entry »

KETTERING — All week commercials ran on Miami Valley television hyping the appearance of the Backstreet Boys at the Fraze Pavillion

They lauded the 1990s boy band as having “changed pop culture.” All week I vowed that I would make the Fraze and the Backstreet Boys pay for that overblown claim.

While I am not willing to say they changed pop culture, they did put on a really good show. On Saturday, Aug. 9, the Fraze was filled with fans of all ages, from young girls to men with thinning, white hair. The group has been around for 15 years, with a CD released as recently as October after years dominating the charts in the 1990s, but still the span of the crowd’s ages was surprising.

Teenagers, who had to be in elementary school during the Backstreet Boys’ heydey, screamed and squealed when one of the members ran backstage before the show. Their screaming didn’t end until the 105 minute show ended.
Read the rest of this entry »

The harmonies and the choreography are intact — and the girls are still screaming
By Jason MacNeil - August 08, 2008

It started like a beautiful dream many music critics have had at one time or another the last decade — standing inside the squared circle with a member of a boy band in the opposite corner, in this case the Backstreet Boys.

But alas the chance to rage against boy band (now man band) mania was not to be last night at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre as the group came into town on their Unbreakable world tour behind the 2007 album of the same name.

Instead the remaining quartet (Kevin Richardson jumped ship in 2006) of Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough and Nick Carter provided more ammunition that the genre is still beating.
Read the rest of this entry »

Backstreet crew seems as happy to be back onstage as the fans were to have them
Ben Rayner
Pop Music Critic

The planet is no worse off for getting Backstreet back.

This stuff is plainly not for me and, I must confess, the hours leading up to long-in-the-tooth boy band the Backstreet Boys’ comeback gig at the Molson Amphitheatre last night involved a lot of sulking and self-pity on my part.

Whatever, though. Having weathered a half-dozen of the Boys’ performances over the years – I first saw them at dingy Robert Guertin Arena in Hull 11 years ago, back when Quebec had beaten the rest of Canada, and most of the world, in contracting Backstreet Fever – I knew it would be painless enough and oddly satisfying from a showbiz-professionalism standpoint.

You’d have to be totally heartless, in any case, to hate on a show that appeared to make the resurgent and very gracious Backstreet Boys as happy to be doing their thing again as the more than 10,000 overwhelmingly female fans squealing in the stands and praying that the encroaching thunder clouds would suddenly prompt a live re-enactment of the wet homoerotic theatrics in that video for “Quit Playing Games With My Heart.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Mixing early career hits with songs from their new album Unbreakable, the band shows it still has the moves and songs to get the girls screaming

They’ve still got it - the power to make a crowd of 12,200 mostly female fans scream so loud it hurts, that is. Earplugs, fast! Ahh, that’s better.

The Backstreet Boys played the Bell Centre last night in support of their sixth album, Unbreakable, released last year - their first without original member Kevin Richardson, who left the group in 2006.

If there was any doubt as to the ongoing allegiance of their audience, it was quashed even before the show began, as cheers broke out in waves. But that was nothing compared with the outburst when the concert finally started.
Read the rest of this entry »

1990s chart-topping boy band finally steps foot onto Moncton stage

It was hot, sweaty, loud and Moncton “wanted it that way”

The Backstreet Boys exploded on to the stage at the Moncton Coliseum for the first time last night. Thousands of screaming fans, mostly women between the ages of 18 and 30, piled into the building and danced, screamed and sang the night away.

Girlicious opened for the veteran boy band sensation and got the crowd warmed up with a high energy, entertaining act that kept the fans content while they waited for the main act, the band that most of them have been following for years, appeared on stage.
Read the rest of this entry »

He doesn’t re­member being in New­found­land before, but A.J McLean has the scar to prove he was there.

The Backstreet Boys were flying from Florida to Germany and had to stop on The Rock so the plane could refuel.

“Howie just actually reminded us that we were here years and years ago,” McLean said before the guys’ first concert in St. John’s. “I got my earring ripped out by Kevin by accident while he and I were wrestling.”

The boy-band — man-band, really — started its 13-city Canadian tour in New­foundland this week. This is the latest leg in their Un­breakable world tour.

McLean was pulling double duty during some of the European tour stops, performing with the guys and in support of his soon-to-come solo release.
Read the rest of this entry »