And no, this is not a drill - the Backstreet Boys have actually debuted new music on Thursday, May 17, and my 13-year-old self is fangirling so hard right now. It's time to quit playing games with my heart. “It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality of the actual music.” He ended up being right: “Shape of My Heart” wasn’t a smash, but it holds up as a finely drawn pop song, and an important inflection point for one of the era’s biggest groups.STOP THE PRESS, EVERYONE, BACKSTREET'S BACK, ALRIGHT! You know what that means? It means it's time to rock your body. “I was trying to think optimistically,” McLean said when downplaying his commercial predictions for the Black & Blue debut. Shades of “Shape of My Heart” exist in songs like the 2005 ballad “Incomplete,” 2013 pop-rock standout “Show ‘Em (What You’re Made Of)” and last year’s surprise hit “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, which preceded the group’s DNA album - their first set to top the Billboard 200 albums chart since Black & Blue. If “Shape of My Heart” didn’t live up to BSB’s lofty expectations at the time, it certainly provided the group with a post-teen blueprint. “Shape of My Heart” is the last Backstreet Boys single to reach the top 10 of the Hot 100, but in retrospect, the song hinted at the adult career that stretched multiple decades in front of BSB. Then there’s the music video, which was the polar opposite of the ostentatious visuals BSB had favored for singles like “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and “Larger Than Life.” Gone are the spaceships and goofy costumes, replaced by inoffensive leather jackets, shaggy hair and a blue-tinted theater setting, with the Boys watching a rehearsal for a fictional production (called The Shape of My Heart) from the wings. But there’s also soft-pop guitar work, low-key percussion and a lyrical focus on growing beyond past mistakes, which allowed “Shape of My Heart” to tell the BSB story from a mature perspective for the first time. There’s still a bubblegum chorus, clean pop structure and tons of vocal harmonies - all thanks in part to Max Martin, who co-wrote and co-produced the track. Black & Blue was the first Backstreet Boys album released with all five members in their twenties - some of them were even staring down their thirties. Nearly 20 years removed from its release, we can hear “Shape of My Heart” for what it really is: the sound of a boy band becoming a group of men. 9 on the Hot 100 - a respectable hit, but short of the commercial heights of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and “I Want It That Way” for the group - while Black & Blue would go on to bow with 1.6 million copies sold in its first week, a still-mind-boggling sum that nonetheless fell far short of McLean’s prediction. In the end, “Shape of My Heart” peaked at No. A mid-tempo reflection on mistakes made and weaknesses admitted, the song was miscast as a flashy comeback that would return serve against *NSYNC and hijack pop radio for months. That’s because “Shape of My Heart” is, by BSB standards, incredibly muted. The truth is, “Shape of My Heart” was neither another immortal karaoke anthem in the vein of “I Want It That Way,” or the song to put Backstreet Boys’ biggest rivals in their place. All eyes were on BSB’s next lead single - ideally, another “I Want It That Way” for the group, and an answer to *NSYNC’s blockbuster run - when “Shape of My Heart” was released on October 3, 2000. 21, 2000 release date, Backstreet’s highly anticipated new album was primed for Black Friday shopping and holiday gifting. In the lead-up to the release of their Millennium follow-up Black & Blue, the group’s AJ McLean claimed that the new album would “break *NSYNC’s record and our record combined the first week out.” The expectation, then, was the unprecedented: over 3 million copies sold in a single week! With Black & Blue given a Nov. And Backstreet thought they were going to.
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