Backstreet Boys and I

I don't know if my autism is to blame for this, but at first I can absolutely DESPISE something only for it to grow on me and then fall in love with it! There are plenty of examples of me doing this, but the more recent one is the 180 I did with The Backstreet Boys! While I was exposed to I Want It That Way a few times before, I was reintroduced to the song again when I played GTA V in 2023. At first, I refused to listen to it and would always change the station whenever it came on. As I dug deeper and deeper into the game and the overall lore additions it adds to the HD universe (I can write another longish blog about what I've discovered about this mirror of a universe...), and growing a bit as a person, I started to despise two other songs on the in-game Pop station (I previously despised Moves Like Jagger and this), Backstreet Boys got their shot, I enjoyed the song more, thought it fit the 2013 LA setting perfectly! Then their Millennium 2.0 album came out... I snatched that pretty fast as its just a re-release of the original 1999 Millennium album but with a bonus CD of unreleased tracks, alt versions of songs, and live performances of songs! I really, really enjoyed the album as it is. Thought it was a great farewell to the 20th century moving into the 21st. I liked it so much I ALMOST wrote an essay about the album cover and its meanings (I made it about the Mario movie poster). So, where does this neat little obsession lead now? Well, during my Utah trip to visit a friend attending BYU, I got a copy of their debut album! It took a few days after getting it for me to listen to it since the car we brought didn't have a CD player, how tragic. After ripping it and adding metadata manually (thanks, Microslop), I was back home and had access to my car, which did have a CD player! Then I noticed the jewel case was rough as the disk would not stay in place, so I sacrificed a crappy Christmas album I made the mistake of buying when I started my CD collection. While I was transferring the front sleeve to the new case, I saw the copy still had its promotional pamphlet of merchandise of the group straight from 1996. I also saw an AoL ad in there, 500 minutes for free, wowie. So, after I changed everything, I finally gave it a full listen, and oh my god, I love it more than the Millennium album! I'm not a composer or a critic, so my opinion doesn't really matter professionally, but I think it's got much more charming songs than the aforementioned Millennium album. I LOVED the first two tracks on that album, but thought the rest of the tracks were pretty forgettable. The debut album doesn't have this problem, I find myself remembering more tracks from it more often than with Millennium. I can totally see why every girl in the 90s/00s was KILLING over these dudes. I'm trying not to be a stereotype as a transfem, but damn... I can't help it, I mean, I got one of them IKEA sharks on that same trip. My music tastes are the COMPLETE polar opposite to my few friends who all like Hard/Death Metal. They do they and I'll continue liking my Dance-Pop. My tastes are all over the place... Jesus, I do write a lot, don't I? I just checked, this is over 600 words long.