Thanks to Backstreet.net reader Heaven In Nick's Eyes for sending this in.

BACKSTREET BOYS
Larger Than Life/Millennium
(Jive/BMG, CD single reissue)

November 14, 1999

[This is a Malaysian Article and so the release mentioned may not be
available elsewhere]

The United States' favourite boy band, the Backstreet Boys, is arguably at
the peak of its careers. Not surprising, then, to hear of a multi-million dollar,
space-age budget for the music video to the vocal quintet's latest single,
Larger Than Life, the second single from the multi-platinum sophomore
Millennium.

The single is included as a bonus CD in a repackage and reissue of the album,
even though the album was only released five months ago.

Larger Than Life actually doesn't stray far from the already successful
driving hard-pop beats the boys made famous in earlier releases such as
Backstreet's Back.

The single version comes with the video mix, an instrumental mix, and a
previously unreleased ballad If You Knew What I Knew.

Don't confuse the video mix on the CD single with the one you see on TV as the
latter edits out the guitar solo. Also, the album and single versions are hardly
any different from each other.

The album, meanwhile, continues the group's pop trend of its previous release
Backstreet's Back.

Boy band lovers will still be attracted to the variety in this set--produced by
pop production giant Max Martin--from the harder Larger Than Life and
balladic I Want It That Way, to the melancholic, Latin-flavoured Show Me
The Meaning Of Being Lonely and the up-tempo It's Gotta Be Now and Back To
Your Heart.

The mix tends to lean towards ballads rather than up-tempo pop stormers, but
the lyrical content doesn't veer away from standard variations of girl-boy
relationship.

But as the album is still doing well in the upper echelons of the US charts even
after five months on the market, you have to give the boys some credit for
hitting on a long lasting formula, for this album at least. _ JASON CHEAH
 
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