History Music / BackstreetBoys

* MassiveMultiplayerScam: In the music video of "The Call", a cheating man goes to a party, meets a gorgeous lady, and goes with her instead of returning home with his girlfriend. Once in the taxi and about to kiss, she gets off the car and runs. He pursues her but is shot, so he seeks refuge at his friend's place. As they are fleeing, the friend reveals himself as the lady from before disguised. She runs and the chase is on again. She leads him first to a room graffitied with the insults like "cheat", "fraud", and "scumbag"; and then to an alley where the lady, the girlfriend, the hotel's staff, and the party people are waiting for him.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Their first single, "We've Got It Goin' On", which features [[BoastfulRap boastful lyrics]], a funkier Parliament-esque tune and solos by Brian and AJ only, is jarringly different from any of the Boys' subsequent singles. The music video also tries to paint AJ as the FaceOfTheBand, a move that didn't exactly work, and had Brian calling himself "The B-Rockster". Also notable is that the then-15-year-old Nick isn't even on the record, as he was going through puberty and his voice had just dropped.

* PowerWalk: The boys are fond of doing this in their music videos.

* WordSaladLyrics: The lyrics to "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and "I Want It That Way" mostly consist of vaguely romantic or generic emotive phrases. Max Martin, who wrote both songs, admitted that he just wrote whatever he felt fit the emotion of the melody rather than anything that made coherent sense (and being a native Swede, English is not his first language).

[[caption-width-right:350:From left to right: Nick Carter, AJ [=McLean=], Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough, and Kevin Richardson]]

-->"Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"

* RefrainFromAssuming: "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" is titled in this format, as "Backstreet's Back" is a recurring phrase in the song and the title of their 1997 album.

* SingerNamedrop: "'''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Back... street's... back]], ALL RIGHT!'''"
** Before that, there was "We've Got It Goin' On".
-->Jam on 'cause Backstreet's got it
-->Come on now everybody
-->We've got it goin' on for years

* TechnicianVersusPerformer: AJ and Nick are the Performers, Brian, Howie, and Kevin were the Technicians.

* SesameStreetCred: Re-recorded one of the TropeNamer's hit songs, along with Elmo. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lstGgcxHvk See here]].
** WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}: Appeared in the special "Arthur, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll", which featured a ShotForShotRemake of "I Want It That Way", complete with Muffy as the sad fangirl waving goodbye to the Boys at the end.

* NiceHat: AJ is mostly seen wearing fedoras or skull caps.

* {{Meganekko}}: The female protagonist of the "Chances" music video is a cute young woman wearing specs.

** "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely". It was supposedly dedicated to Dorough's dead older sister, and the video shows images and references to her and other lost loved ones of the band members, including Kevin's father, a girlfriend of AJ's who was killed by a drunk driver, and former producer Denniz [=PoP=], who passed away in 1998.

* ExtyYearsFromNow: The music video for "Larger Than Life" is set at New Year's Eve 2999, a full [[IncrediblyLamePun millennium]] from around the time the single was released.

* HumanPopsicle: The music video for "Larger Than Life" begins with the group being unfrozen at [[ExtyYearsFromNow New Year's Eve 2999]].

* DeadPersonConversation: "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely", in a meta sense, has the boys singing to their deceased loved ones (Howie to his late sister, Kevin to his late father, AJ to his late girlfriend, and all the boys to their late mentor Denniz [=PoP=]).
* DeadToBeginWith: Brian in the "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" music video.

* DueToTheDead: The music video of "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" is [[InMemoriam openly dedicated]] to both their late manager and their deceased loved ones.

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Nick, to the rest of the guys, being the youngest. Poor Howie got pranked by him all the time.

** If you're only familiar with single version of "Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)", you might be surprised to find out, that the original album version had Brian singing both verses. The song was actually recorded on the same session as "We've Got It Goin' On". By the time the song was about the become single, the producers, seeing Nick's growing popularity among the fanbase, decided to have him record new vocals for second verse. [[note]]For the music video, though, he had to lip-sync to Brian's original version, as the music video was made before he actually recorded his own vocals.[[/note]]

* BadassBeard: AJ's physical trademark, though both Kevin and Howie frequently have them as well.

* AWildRapperAppears: Toni Cottura suddenly raps during the second verse of "Get Down". AJ McLean then continues to rap for a bit more.

If you are thinking of a BoyBand, chances are the first that pops up in your head will be the Backstreet Boys. Even overshadowing Music/{{NSYNC}} in the day (which later brought real fame to Music/JustinTimberlake), they were formed in 1993 and became hugely popular after debuting in the States in the summer of 1997. The five original members were A.J. [=McLean=], Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Nick Carter, and Kevin Richardson. Richardson left in 2006, making them a four-man group for a while, then permanently returned to the band in 2012.

The group was formed by airline mogul Lou Pearlman, who leased one of his airplanes to Music/NewKidsOnTheBlock and realized [[FollowTheLeader there was money to be made in a clean-cut band of boys]], quickly deciding to turn his attention to talent seeking. He recruited local talent from Orlando and spent the first half of the '90s training them in singing and choreography. After plenty of legal troubles, the group became first famous in Europe, and then became ''the'' BoyBand for girls to swoon over in the U.S., being a major part of [[TheNineties late-'90s pop culture]]. After even ''more'' legal troubles (specifically, a horrible contract which allowed Pearlman to take a massive fraction of their profits), the band left his management and have continued to perform ever since.

* BoyBand: Right above Music/{{NSYNC}}, they were ''the'' boyband of the late '90s. They are the most successful boy band of all time (although NSYNC were more successful domestically, and with social media, globalization, and possibly profitability, Music/OneDirection may surpass them).

* PutOnABus: Kevin left the band in 2006 in order to focus on [[IJustWantToBeNormal living a more normal life]] with his family, though he [[TheBusCameBack eventually rejoins six years later]].

* NinetiesHair: Nick (in)famously sported a bowl cut at the start of the group's career. He recently revealed, during a concert in Brazil, that he wanted to grow out his hair to look like [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Kurt Cobain]], but thinks he ended up looking like a lesbian instead, which he sees as the reason why he wound up as the most popular among the fanbase.

* Nickolas Carter - born January 28, 1980. (1993–)
* Kevin Richardson - born October 3, 1971. (1993–2006, 2012–)
* Brian Littrell - born February 20, 1975. (1993–)

As time went on, the Boys became good friends with the New Kids, the very group they were capitalizing on, eventually forming a boy band {{supergroup}} NKOTBSB, as well as Nick Carter and Jordan Knight's super''duo'', Nick and Knight.