Florida natives Howie Dorough and AJ McLean met each other through a mutual vocal coach and later discovered Nick Carter. Meanwhile, cousins Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell from Lexington, Kentucky, were singing in local church choirs and festivals.
In 1992, Lou Pearlman placed an ad in the Orlando Sentinel to compose a vocal group with a “New Kids on the Block” look with a “Boyz II Men” sound”. Pearlman auditioned hundreds of young performers and eventually, McLean, Carter, Dorough, and Richardson were selected. Littrell moved from Kentucky to formally join the group in April 1993.
Pearlman named them Backstreet Boys after Orlando’s Backstreet Market, an outdoor flea market which was also a teen hangout.
The group released their self-titled debut album in 1996. The following year, they released their second album, Backstreet’s Back (1997), and rose to superstardom with their third studio album, Millennium (1999), anchored by the worldwide hit I Want It That Way. The album Black & Blue followed in 2000.
After a two-year hiatus, they regrouped and released a comeback album, Never Gone (2005). Richardson left the group shortly afterwards to pursue other interests, and the group released two albums as a quartet: Unbreakable (2007) and This Is Us (2009).
Richardson rejoined the group in 2012, and the group released their first independent album, In a World Like This. Follow-up album DNA (2019) debuted at #1, making Backstreet Boys the first boyband to top the US album charts in three different decades.
In March 2017, the group began a concert residency in Las Vegas that lasted two years.
AJ McLean
Vocals Howie Dorough
Vocals Nick Carter
Vocals Kevin Richardson
Vocals Brian Littrell
Vocals
You May Also Like
Nirvana When Nevermind topped the US charts on 11 January 1992 it signalled more than just the arrival of…
Bobby 'Blue' Bland Born in Rosemark, Tennessee on 27 January 1930, Bland was an inspired performer who blended gospel,…
Blue Cheer Blue Cheer emerged in 1967 under the cover of the San Francisco psychedelic scene, but there…
East Village English indie pop band East Village was formed in the mid-1980s by brothers Martin and Paul…
Cardigans, The On record, The Cardigans followed in the exalted Swedish rock & roll tradition of fellow countrymen…
Big Pig Although technically an Australian group, Big Pig began in London around 1985. Lead singer Sherine had…
Blue Ox Babes, The Kevin Archer, a key player in Geno-era Dexys Midnight Runners, changed his name to Al because Kevin…
TLC This girl group - initially named '2nd Nature' - was formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1990,…
