Backstreet Boys

The Backstreet Boys formed in Orlando in 1993 around Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson. Dorough and McLean met through a mutual vocal coach and found Carter through auditions, while cousins Littrell and Richardson, from Lexington, Kentucky, had sung in church choirs; manager Lou Pearlman assembled the group after placing a newspaper ad seeking the look of New Kids on the Block with the sound of Boyz II Men.

They broke through first in Europe before becoming one of the defining American pop groups of the late 1990s, working with Swedish producers including Max Martin on singles such as 'Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)', 'Everybody (Backstreet's Back)', 'As Long as You Love Me' and 'I Want It That Way', the latter anchoring their 1999 album Millennium. Their sound rests on layered five-part vocal harmony over dance-pop and ballad arrangements, paired live with choreography.

After Black & Blue (2000) and a two-year hiatus, the group regrouped for the comeback album Never Gone (2005). Richardson left in 2006, and the band recorded two albums as a quartet, Unbreakable (2007) and This Is Us (2009), before he rejoined in 2012. They marked their 20th anniversary with In a World Like This (2013).

DNA (2019) debuted at number one nineteen years after their last chart-topper, making them the first boy band to top the US album chart across three separate decades. They released a Christmas album, A Very Backstreet Christmas, in 2022, and reissued Millennium as Millennium 2.0 in 2025 with extra tracks.

The group has sold more than 150 million records, making them the best-selling boy band ever, and their first ten albums all reached the US top ten, a run matched only by Led Zeppelin. They received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2013 and have held two Las Vegas residencies, Larger Than Life and Into the Millennium, which opened at the Sphere in 2025, performing throughout with all five original members.