LIES. This is about music. During my 9 weeks of studying, I had to make a whole lot of notecards. And of course, as I banned myself from television (except for the Bachelorette on Monday nights, White Collar/Rizzoli and Isles/Franklin and Bash/Covert Affairs on Tuesday Nights, Dallas on Wednesdays, and Suits on Thursday nights...okay, so I wasn't very good at this), I needed some sort of background noise as I committed mechanisms and semi-useless physics equations to memory. So naturally I turned to music. As much as I loved the Barnes and Noble looped playlist of Maroon 5-Emeli Sande-Of Monsters and Men-Brandi Carlisle playlist (no, I really did love it...From Finner is actually one of my favorite songs now), I had to escape the crying kids and the obnoxious Barista that I've sure was loudly compulsively lying about his love life to his co-workers and the whole of Barnes and Noble because everyone could hear him. So I went to the World Bank with my dad and hijacked some Dutch lady's office. While there, I indulged in two things. The first (which should just be a give away to anyone that knows me) was Backstreet. Until 2 and 2 make 3, I will stand by the Backstreet boys being the best 5-piece vocal harmony group of the late 1990s and early 2000s and I will fight in hand-to-hand combat anybody that tries to disagree.I basically listened to every old school BSB video on youtube and came up with key findings/thoughts:
1. Backstreet Boys circa 1993
So once upon a time, they used to let Howie D sing lead? I mean, to be fair, Howie's voice is good. You probably wouldn't know it though because soon after this they must have realized that Brian Litrell had the voice of a pop god and swiped all the solos for him. I'm obviously not mad about it because Brian is amazing and hit his vocal peak around like 1998, just in time for me to be old enough to be obsessed. And plus Howie holds it down on the high harmony like a boss and has probably aged the best out of the da boys. He's like the Niall Horan (of One Direction) of his time. Also, were I not just shy of 3 years old, I would have been jonesing so hard for young Nick Carter. He sounds a bit like a woman (So like Justin Bieber circa last week), and would have been the closest one to me in height at that point. Kevin was like 45 already but remains a "Real Life Disney Prince" so whatever. And from listening to every a cappella BSB performace available (I had A LOT of notecards to do okay?), he sings all the bass parts, and you know how I feel about low man voices. AJ was great because 1) he was rapping (BSB was clearly fashioned as a hybrid of Boys to Men and New Kids on the Block, him being the rapping New Kids boy, I wanna say Donny) and 2) he was soooo unfortunate looking most of the time. But it was like he was there to prove that you could be ugly and famous back in the day as long as you had major talent. Soon after this video was made (where to be fair he looks fine), he found his inner Dennis Rodman and started dressing like Scary Spice on the reg. Today's standards of beauty make it impossible for me to end up famous unless I grow into an aspiring model with a waitressing job and an olympic boyfriend on my arm. I hate everything.
(dammit, I wasn't supposed to keep going with this. whatever)
2. I'll Never Break Your Heart
An underrated BSB song with not one, but TWO incredible videos. I just can't go on to the rest of this without a quick analysis of both
0:00 - The girls. THE GIRLS. "how bout to friends?" "FRIENDS YEAH!" ...should have added "EFF BOYS I JUST WANNA DANCE"
0:08 - You tell her Kevin.. *swoon*
0:25 - Omg matching patriotic sweaters for a chilly yet steamy day on the slopes.
1:50 - Coordinated shoulder movements. Holy crap these guys are amazing. I truly believe they'll never break my heart now
2:08 - They're slow dancing with the girls. Why didn't this happen to me on any of those Pender Ski Trips? WHERE WAS MY BACKSTREET BOY??
3:26 - Brian has planted a rose in the snow for this biddy. He would be the most sprung over a girl
3:42 - Brian and AJ slay the rest of the track. The End.
0:20 - AJ being fug. I miss the sweaters from the budget video :(
0:38 - Nick Carter uses this product, makes it a best-seller at Limited Too:
2:16 - Hi Howie. Casually playin' your guitar. I see you.
2:40 - Brian bringing that falsetto realness. Never gets old
2:47 - How did it take me this long to realize how stupid Nick Carter's outfit/room is?
2:58 - Brian would sneak a dog into this video.
3:03 - Nick's girl's spiked collar. I think she was confused when they said "Bring a choker, they're super in these days"
3:14 - Kevin remains perfect. Not only is my birthday twin, but he is down with the swirl. SCORE *swoon*
3:35 - Perfect pop moment with the key-change. Works EVERYTIME
Goodness there's so much I could go into, but I gotta move on.Anyway, all the other times when I wasn't listening to Backstreet, I was looking up songs from the past. Wonderful people on Youtube have made compilations where you can listen to the top 60-something songs from a certain year, so obviously that's what I did. Since my sister is going into the 7th grade this year, I'm going back ten years (I am ancient) to the Top Songs of 2002 and pointing out some of my personal highlights.
HERE WE GO BACK TO 2002! This compilation is pretty hiphop/r&b centric. But lets be real, thats all I was listening to back then anyway. Who would have predicted my Europop awakening 5 years later?
- Fullmoom, Brandy - When Brandy tried to be bad and no1curred
- Call me beep me, Christina Milian - Shout of to Kim Possible. That was my show. Except when her and Ron got together or whatever doing that movie. NOT HERE FOR THAT, DISNEY.
- Air Force One, Nelly - Wow, 2002 was Nelly's year wasn't it? I knew (still know) Murphy Lee's entire part in this. Never did own a pair of Air force ones though.
- Overprotected, Britney Spears - UGH MY JAM. This was back when Godney was still queen and not a hot mess. I think I still kind of hated her for ditching her good girl image (I'm pretty sure I took it personally haha), but this song was my life. I could relate you know. I didn't know shet until I went to boarding school (Thank you Choate!).
- Dirrty, Christina Aguilera - Cannot forget that extra R. She just put it all out there didn't she? And by it I mean her vajayjay and her butt. I was so against this whole era haha. Well, until Fighter came along.
- Girlfriend, NSYNC - Nelly totally made this song. But I just wanted JC to sing this song to me. I wont go into detail about how disappointed I am in his solo career (I've already covered it) and how Justin refuses to sing again, so we'll just leave it at that. JUSTIN BIEBER THANKS YOU FOR THE INSPIRATION.
- Love at First Sight, Kylie Minogue - I actually remember this coming out. It was my second Kylie song after the iconic 'Can't get you out of my head' and I was ALL ABOUT IT. Ugh, sooo 7th grade.
- All You Wanted, Michelle Branch - Remember when everyone thought this song was about Jesus? Or was that just me?
- Sk8er boi, Avril Lavigne - This song defines the 7th grade for me. Or rather, for everyone who wasn't me. Avril started a takeover where every girl started wearing ties and then pretended it wasn't because of Avril. I remember some girl even claimed that Avril copied her and that she'd been wearing ties since 'like 5th grade.' I think I dropped her as a friend soon after.
- Gangsta Lovin, Eve - LOVE LOVE LOVE. This is how I like my female MCs. And her show was amazing.
- Hot in Herre, Nelly - HEY GIRL I THINK MY BUTT GETTING BIG. If you knew any words to this song it was those 8 words. Nelly wishes every year was 2002
- I can, Nas - Oh man oh man, inspiring me to 7th grade greatness right here...But seriously, can we talk about how useless all school years prior to maybe 11th grade were to life? Like elementary school, what the hell were we even doing? Coloring? dissecting owl pellets for weeks at a time?
- A Thousand Miles, Vanessa Carlton - Whatever happened to her? After the flawless 'Ordinary Day' and 'White Houses' she just kinda fell off. Every girl and their mom tried to learn this song though.
- The World's Greatest, R. Kelly - Robert needed to stop peeing on girls and singing songs about getting his freak on to realize his greatness. And this song was AMAZEBALLS. It still makes me feel like I can conquer the world haha. Gotta put this on my non-existant work out mix.
- Gotta Get Through This, Daniel Bedingfield - That awkward moment when you realized this song was sang by a dude. And then realizing years later that he's Natasha Bedingfield's brother. Mind Blown.
- What's Luv, Fat Joe - Curse you Fat Joe for reducing dancing to Leaning Back. Love this song, but I'll never forgive you for that shet.
- My Sacrifice, Creed - You're lying to yourself if you say you weren't all about Creed back in the day.
And in this compilation, Nelly is crowned King of 2002 with "Dilemma" ft. Kelly Rowland. Kelendria was always my favorite child of Destiny so I had this on blast on my little radio all day errday. And Nelly, take a bow. 2002 was yours...and then some time later you did the WORST song probably ever recorded until Friday by Rebecca Black (that awful "Over and Over" with Mr. Faith Hill's husband). But you should still be proud, I guess.
Olympic picture post tomorrow? I THINK YES.
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