KiwiLovesMusic

1999 was a pivotal year for pop music in my life.

I was 10, about to be 11. We had gone on an extended trip to my grandmother’s house in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was flipping her old (even for that time) bunny eared TV to the UHF channel, and adjusting the attena to get The Box to come in. You don’t remember The Box? It was a channel that you could call in to a 900 number and request music videos to be played. It was a whole thing… the 90s were a wild time. Anyway, I would have to sit “just so” in front of the TV to get the best reception and I would wait for other people to call in. And that’s when I saw it for the first time.

When I tell you that my first listen of I Want It That Way is one of the core experiences of my life, I want you to take me so seriously. I remember this first so clearly; the same way you would remember a first kiss or winning a major award as a child. It was like I gained consciousness in that moment… there had been nothing before and now there was only this sparkly pop synth beat and AJ McLean adlibbing “ye-eh-eah”. And I know you read that last bit in his exact inflection because that’s how deeply embedded I Want It That Way has become in our pop culture collective.

Later that day we went to the mall, and I wasted no time getting myself to Sam Goody to get my hands on this album so I could hear that song again. Y’all… I bought it on cassette tape because I didn’t want to wait until we went back home later that week to listen to the CD, and I had an old busted up Walkman with me. And when I say I had it with me, I mean I had brought it to the mall because I did not want to wait one second longer than I had to before I could push that play button.

I spent the rest of that trip either sitting on the back step meticulously rewinding and memorizing every single lyric uttered on that tape, or covertly sneaking AA batteries out of various appliances so I could keep sitting on the back step memorizing every lyric.

This wasn’t my first encounter with boybands; Hanson got me well down that path a few years before. Backstreet Boys were also already pretty heavy in my rotation at that time. Millennium hit different though.

This was was THE album of the moment, kind of perfectly encapsulating what was going on in music at that time. It was the prime era of MTV, the multi-million dollar music video shoot, teen magazines, and pop radio. We were coming out of our grungey hippy revival funk and looking to the future. That future was bouncy, optimistic, and a shiny baby blue for some reason. A lot of songs were about love, of course, but in earnest. Life was a rom-com and this was the backing track. Your school crush might not notice you, but these five conventionally attractive young men are singing about how you are their fire… their one desire.

This was a pivotal time in my life. 1999 was the summer I went from a kid to a preteen. There were big life changes happening at home with my step-dad entering the picture. I went from thinking boys were gross to thinking maybe not all of them were gross. MTV became my go-to channel. I started to care about who was hosting and performing on SNL. We spent part of the summer in the deep woods where I would walk up and down a dirt road trying to get radio signal to listen to Casey Kasem with little luck. I listened to a lot of Millennium since it was the only cassette I had of “my” music. I had teen angst without really having anything to really be angsty about so I projected my emotions on the perceived love dramas playing through my headphones.

This was a pivotal time in the Backstreet Boys timeline as well. For those not up on their BSB lore, this was the first album post-Lou Pearlman. They had left their record label and management team that they had been with since ’93. They had two successful European releases and had just cracked the US market. NSYNC was hot on their heels (and also part of the Boyband Con). There was a lot riding on this album and to have it perform well was a make or break moment for the band. And it did perform well, setting sales records at the time as well as continuing to be ranked as one of the best selling records of all time.

Millennium is a good pop album, even when you take the nostalgia goggles off. It’s ranked as one of the best selling albums of all time. It’s got pop production icon Max Martin involved in 7 of the 12 songs. It was nominated for some Grammys and lost most to Santana. Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely is tragically beautiful. Moms get a shoutout in The Perfect Fan. Back To Your Heart is the breakup song we all want to be written to us. It’s not deep or thought-provoking, but it’s damn catchy with some poignant lyrics that hit you when you least expect it.

25 years later, I Want It That Way still holds up. Recently I was at a Taylor Swift themed silent disco that had a headphone channel of general pop hits you could switch to. Somehow, the crowd of mostly Gen Z & Alpha Swifties all switched to that channel at the same time and scream-sung every word to I Want It That Way as if it was a middle school dance in 1999.

Here’s to you, Millennium. You were a canon event in my life and the first album I actually wore out listening to. You continue to be the touchstone for all pop music I discover. Talking about you makes me feel my age, but listening to you makes me feel like I’m 11 again. I will always love you more than No Strings Attached.

KTBPA ❤️