The Song: “I Want It That Way” emerged on TRL May 5, 1999, taking only three day to make it to the top of the countdown. Though standard in its verse-chorus-verse…here comes the bridge structure, this was the band’s most democratic single with all band member’s (that’s right, even Kevin) taking a verse.
Just as big was the video. Why an airport? Why strange crowds heralding the bands return while the boys donned all-white outfits and trench coats? Who knows. And why should we. It was a great pop song—maybe one of the greatest.
Yesterday, New York Magazine’s arts and culture blog Vulture made a post entitled “White People in Rap: A History.” Readers reacted to the blog’s failure to include certain names and a comment from user KTLincoln–that’s recess music editor Kevin Lincoln–about hip-hop collective anticon. made its way into their amended post today. Check it out.
Side note: anticon’s WHY? was one of the best shows I saw last year.
For those still around after finals, artist Christian Marclay will be giving a gallery tour and talk on his new exhibit, Video Quartet, May 7 as part of the First Thursday series at the Nasher Museum of Art.
The 2002 installation, projected in a 14-minute loop on four enormous side-by-side screens, has been described as “A Symphony of Images, Scored By a Maestro” by the Washington Post.
The gallery tour begins at 6 p.m. with the talk following at 7 p.m.
Earlier this week–April 27 to be precise–marked the 10-year anniversary of the release of “I Want It That Way.” Easily the Backstreet Boys’ greatest pop anthem, the song is an important marker to an era in popular American music. The release of the boy band’s second album marks a golden age in American pop (though some could date this to the January 1999 release of Britney Spear’s debut …Baby One More Time).
The period between May 1999 and May 2000 saw the height of the boy band and pop princess craze. Although the seeds of the pop phenomenon were planted much earlier, this was the explosion. Records were selling at unseen highs, Times Square was getting shut down when “N Sync visited and a nobody named Carson Daly on a show called Total Request Live was at the center of it all. Tiger Beat was cool again, and sugar-coated pop was it. Sure, this 12-month stretch is notable for And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, Knock Knock and Summerteeth among other musical feats more deserving of our attention. But this was the sound of the times, and TRL told us so. Moreover, has there ever been a time when it was cool to have Christina, Eminem and Fred Durst on the same radio station?
Over the next year, the Playground will be revisiting this period, recounting the hits and sort-of-hits. Our bookends will be the releases of “I Want It That Way” and the two big releases of May 2000: Britney’s sophomore surge album Oops!… I Did It Again and Eminem’s great The Marshall Mathers LP. Along the way, we’ll encounter TLC, Mariah Carey, ‘N Sync (naturally), Korn and many more as we look at how the world was and how it has changed through pop music. It will be like Rob Gordon’s record collection, only less self-centered.
The series begins tomorrow and will then appear each Wednesday through May 2010. See you in 1999…
The Regulator Bookshop is hosting a slew of exciting readings in the coming weeks. Tonight, Wells Tower will read from his Michiko Kakutani-approved debut collection of short stories Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. On Friday, May 1, Duke royalty Reynolds Price will do a reading from his new memoir Ardent Spirits. Michael Malone, based in Hillsborough, N.C. and currently a visiting professor of the practice at Duke, will read from his new novel May 18. In the distance, book aficionados can look forward to a reading from celebrated Netherland author Joseph O’Neill June 23. Click here for the bookshop’s full calendar of events.
