I Don't Want It That Way

Published Jan. 25, 2000, in The Monitor

Column by Matthew Webber

The Backstreet Boys are stalking me. In my house, at my school, in my mind. Everywhere I turn they’re there. Where I run, their singles follow. They wink at me on MTV. I flip through radio stations and they sing right down the dial. They hide in my mailbox and lie in wait, staring into my eyes from the cover of Rolling Stone. (In true stalker fashion, they’re not wearing pants.)

They want it that way? Well I want them to go away.

I honestly don’t hate the Backstreet Boys. Though it pains me to confess it, I actually liked “I Want It That Way” the first time I heard it on the radio. But I liked it less the second time and even less the third time and now, 5,303,117 times later, its saccharinity makes me vomit.

But all of this is beside the point. This opinion piece isn’t about those five Disney World dropouts. Rather, this opinion piece is about all those Disney World dropouts currently stalking amongst us like a millenium edition of Night of the Living Dead: 98 Degrees, ‘N Sync, LFO and whatever new boy “band” recently sold their souls to Clearasil. And lest I forget, this opinion piece is about all those girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, ad nauseum. This opinion piece is also about all those great new “Latin” singers whose songs are about as Latin as I am. And it’s also about MTV, Rolling Stone and the Grammy Awards. This opinion piece is all about mediocrity.

What prompted this opinion piece was a startling announcement this month. (You better sit down for this.) The Backstreet Boys were nominated for four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year. Repeat: The Backstreet Boys were nominated for four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year.

Not that I ever respected the Grammy Awards before, because -- and correct me if I’m wrong -- I seem to remember a little group named Milli Vanilli winning some awards not too long ago. But with some of the nominations and winners in recent years I thought the Grammy Awards were at least making some progress in recognizing actual talent instead of whatever it was they recognized before. Odelay and OK Computer were nominated. Lauryn Hill actually won. But this year’s nominations are one step backward for man, one giant leap into a vat of ill-tempered sea bass for mankind.

My problem with these pop groups isn’t their music. It’s true I don’t like their music, but it wasn’t exactly written with a cynical college student in mind. It was written for screaming prepubescents who, of course, are as hooked on this crap as heroin addicts on heroin. The kids like this stuff; always have, always will. Backstreet and their clones descended from the New Kids, who descended from New Edition, who descended from Shaun Cassidy. There’s a market for this music that strictly adheres to the good old law of supply and demand. What the kids demand, the Backstreet Boys supply. It’s simple economics.

My problem with these pop groups is that once-respectable music institutions are smooching their teenage booties. My problem with these pop groups is that they are everywhere. We now return to the beginning of this opinion piece. The Backstreet Boys are stalking me. Carson Daly is telling me what videos I absolutely need to watch or I will die. I can’t turn on the radio or MTV, or open a Rolling Stone or read the list of Grammy nominations without encountering an acne-less face or a pair of silicone breasts. What this tells me -- and the reason I am so angry -- is that the public and the music industry fully support this mediocrity.

Let the kids buy those albums they’ll regret six years from now. Let them adore the brooding rebel of the group (because every group has one). But let somebody, somewhere, support creative, exciting, challenging music that was actually written by the people who perform it!

Doesn’t anybody buy good albums anymore? Let’s take a look at the top ten best-selling albums of 1999 (from SoundScan): 1. Backstreet Boys 2. Britney Spears 3. Ricky Martin 4. Shania Twain 5. Limp Bizkit 6. Santana 7. Kid Rock 8. TLC 9. Christina Aguilera 10. Dixie Chicks. With the exception of Santana, Kid Rock and the Dixie Chicks, this list could also serve as the top mediocre artists. (Although I have at least one friend who would disagree with each of my non-mediocre selections.) None of the music is bad. It’s just uninspired. It’s bland. It sounds, and is packaged, exactly the same as all the other music on Total Request Live.

But somehow this “music” follows us everywhere. On the radio, in magazines, in television commercials. Why haven’t Matt Pinfield and Kurt Loder (the only two people left on MTV who know anything about anything) killed themselves in disgust yet and taken out Carson Daly with them? Why don’t more artists pull a Jay-Z and boycott the Grammy Awards?

I personally am boycotting the Grammy Awards, not that my opinion counts for anything. The Backstreet Boys will still win a few awards, making some 12-year-old girl very happy. And the audience members will cheer like mad, humming the winning song’s melody in their heads. It will sound the same as the previous winning song.