Backstreet's back
Deep in the heart of every late 30s/early 40s-something woman is a secret she would be loath to admit. And no, it is not that we hide bodies in the back garden. (Not everyone can afford a garden.)
Our secret, in fact, is this: once upon a time, circa late '90s, our hearts were in the sole care of that specimen of human male collectively identifying as the Backstreet Boys. And now in 2025, come July, the BSB are seeking to capitalise on some of the embers of the passion that once burned so brightly. Think the film industry lacks imagination when it inflicts upon you sequel after sequel? The BSB are going to do you one better by releasing a digitally remastered version of their Millennium album titled – you are going to want to sit down for this – Millennium 2.0.
Please do not be alarmed if you despise change in your advanced age, because there is absolutely nothing new on offer in this digitally remastered situation other than the number 2. In the trusty words of People, the only new thing you will have to tolerate on Millennium 2.0 will be six unheard demos and six live recordings from the BSB Millennium tour. Every existing track that you once knew and loved – and still know the words to despite having not heard it in 20 years – will be digitally remastered. That is it.
Boyband mission statement
Like their boyband brethren, the BSB existed to teach us all about love. We had the baby of the group Nick Carter, who joined the band at 16 and had the most fabulous middle parting in his blond hair. Nick walked so Jack Dawson (of Titanic fame) could run. Then there was Brian Littrell, the avowed best friend of Nick, cousin of fellow bandmate Kevin Richardson, and the man who usually opened most of BSB tracks. Brian's favourite colour was blue. We former BSB fans may not remember to pick up milk when we do the groceries, but you will be pleased to note that we have retained this information for the day Earth gets overtaken by alien overlords and the only condition of release is to answer to their chief whether Brian prefers blue or yellow.
AJ McLean was the obligatory whacky tattooed figure, and together with Nick and Brian, got the meatiest part of the songs (or at least as meaty as it could be after being split three ways.) Kevin, Brian's cousin, existed to stare moodily in the background and occasionally astonished us all with his lovely baritone. The final member of this crew was Howie Dorough, who, like Kevin, melted away in the background, but did inform us during the liner notes of the first Backstreet Boys album that his favourite book was John Grisham's The Firm, an admission that sparked a love affair with courtroom dramas with at least one bookish BSB fan.
Speaking of liner notes, along with churning out ballads and looking pretty, our lovelorn hotshots also relied heavily on those little cassette booklets to lure fans into swearing allegiance to them. These liner notes were almost as important as whatever was actually on the album. In minuscule writing that would have you squinting today, these informative booklets would detail the lyrics of every track, include an array of photos of moody poses, and thoughtfully give us thank you letters from each band member that fans would pore over as if they were WW2 mathematicians and it was the enigma code. What a beautiful, simple time to be alive!
Looking back at 'Millennium'
Back in 1999, BSB fans, forever congratulating themselves on picking the right side of the Backstreet Boys-'N Sync battle were beside with joy with the third BSB album, Millennium, which included not just I Want It That Way, but an ego-affirming song dedicated to the fans (Larger Than Life), another dedicated to Brian's mother (The Perfect Fan) and one thoughtful contemplation on the subject of loneliness (Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely). As a bonus, this last song contained the word 'crimson', which is not a feat any other boyband can boast of.
Now that we are older and wiser, we sigh in despair at the numerous offerings of the K-pop industry, but back in 1999, we could have written a dissertation on why Millennium was the most important album ever produced, with a large section on why its biggest single, I Want It That Way was the most genius musical composition to have ever graced the earth.
It wouldn't have been a very good dissertation, mind you, because most available brain cells were engaged in swooning over the album cover. To ensure maximum swoon-ability, our heroes out-dazzle the sun in blinding white outfits and shoes of the type favoured by detergent commercials. Standing against a blue backdrop, they stare soulfully at an indeterminate spot, lost in the type of philosophical contemplation not seen since the likes of Aristotle. Perhaps they are contemplating the meaning of life, or more likely, the meaning behind I Want It That Way, which relies almost exclusively on a meaningless variation of the words 'fire', ' desire' and 'I want it that way'.
Just what it is that they desire and why they are so fixated on wanting it that way is a mystery that no one has ever successfully cracked, but such is the power of this hit track that, as Brooklyn Nine Nine reminded us, it can even ferret out murderers in a prisoner line-up. It is fitting, then, that to promote the new-but-not-really-new Millennium 2.0, our heroes of the days of yore performed their biggest hit during the recent SNL 50th anniversary show.
We are not the only ones who have grown up. They have, too. For a start, they are all fathers now. Brian suffers from a medical condition causing him difficulty singing, not that that stops him from trying. Those who do not know will be shocked at his opening verse in the recent SNL performance, but with Nick – no longer the designated baby – swooping in to pick up his second verse and saving his friend, balance is restored.
Is there any point in Millennium 2.0? Heavens no. But since we are getting it anyway, we may as well submit to nostalgia, revisit simpler times (digitally remastered though they may be) and try, once again, to solve the unfathomable riddle of I Want It That Way.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
20 hours ago
- Express Tribune
The Titan, the Max, and the cult of the visionary
In June 2023, the world momentarily paused to follow the fate of five men trapped inside a small carbon fibre tube descending into the depths of the Atlantic. Aboard the OceanGate submersible named Titan, their mission was to witness the graveyard of another failed engineering marvel — the Titanic. However, it was barely 90 minutes into their descent that the Titan lost contact with the surface ship. A multinational search effort was launched and for days, headlines speculated the possibility of survival and the fate that met the adventurers on board the submersible. TV new channels ran live updates on the oxygen levels inside the sub. On the surface, this was a story of risk, exploration, and tragedy. But as the dust settled — or rather, as the implosion was confirmed — what emerged was not a simple tale of unfortunate loss but a parable of 21st-century hubris. Just like another disaster that came before it — the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max aircrafts in 2018 and 2019, which claimed 346 lives — the Titan sub tragedy was not an accident. It was the vision of a billionaire who placed profit, reputation, and ego above human life. Netflix's twin documentaries, The Titan: The OceanGate Disaster and Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, are in many ways cinematic mirror images of one another. One probes an elite venture's audacious flirtation with death, and the other, a once-revered aerospace titan's calculated betrayal of its founding values. Together, they offer a chilling study of how capitalist incentives and delusional self-belief have hollowed out the core of safety, accountability, and engineering integrity. What the documentary reveals is that The Titan sub was no sleek marvel of deep-sea engineering. It was a patchwork of consumer-grade parts, including a video game controller used to steer it and experimental carbon fibre technology deemed unsuitable by deep-sea experts. Stockton Rush, OceanGate's founder, persisted in cutting corners and dismissing warnings. He had fired employees who raised safety concerns and sidestepped regulatory classification by labeling his vessel as an "experimental" craft. The Titan: The OceanGate Disaster doesn't just document a submersible's final voyage. It examines the psychology of its maker. Rush was a man who saw regulation as an 'obstacle to innovation' and believed himself uniquely capable of rewriting the rules. His hubris wasn't just personal; it was ideological. He believed in the mythology of the visionary entrepreneur, the kind Silicon Valley hails as disruptive geniuses, too bold for bureaucracies and too fast for rules. This myth, dangerously incubated in the echo chambers of modern capitalism, is what ultimately doomed the Titan. What makes Titan particularly unsettling is its cultural context. As the documentary smartly illustrates, the media spectacle that followed the incident became its own capitalist sideshow — clickbait headlines, Twitter jokes, and livestreamed oxygen countdowns. The actual engineering failure became less important than the cultural symbolism: rich men paying $250,000 to tour the ruins of a sunken ship, only to die en route in an imploding capsule. It was sadder than Daedalus' own son flying too close to the sun on the wings he created. The film subtly points out that the real problem is not that the story distracted us from "more important" news. The tragedy is that our social media-fueled discourse couldn't rise above simplistic binaries: Either mourn the deaths or mock them; there was no nuance to the discussion on wealth inequality and scientific exploration. A corporation falls If Titan is a story of libertarian arrogance run amok, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing is the quiet, damning chronicle of institutional rot. Directed by Rory Kennedy, Downfall traces the corporate unravelling of Boeing from a beacon of engineering excellence to a cautionary tale of financialised capitalism. When Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea in October 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 fell out of the sky five months later, the world wanted to blame pilot error or poor training. After all, it was unthinkable that Boeing — with its sterling legacy and global dominance — had built a flawed aircraft. 'If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going' was the tagline bandied about, such was the faith in this aerospace engineering marvel. However, Downfall strips away that illusion with surgical precision. It reveals how the 737 Max, Boeing's bestselling plane, had been designed with a secret: a deadly anti-stall system (MCAS) that pilots weren't told about, not even in manuals or simulators. The documentary makes it clear that the crashes weren't engineering mistakes — they were business decisions. Boeing had faced stiff competition from Airbus, which launched a more fuel-efficient model. Instead of designing a new aircraft from scratch, Boeing retooled the ageing 737 to save billions and rushed the Max to market. The company lobbied the FAA to forgo extensive pilot retraining, fearing it would cost sales. They won. The regulators rolled over. And 346 people died. The most powerful aspect of Downfall is its use of voices we rarely hear — the families of victims, the disillusioned engineers, the whistleblowers. One bereaved father becomes a searing voice of grief-fueled advocacy, and a former Boeing employee recalls the moment he realised the company had 'lost its soul.' These testimonies, paired with internal Boeing emails mocking regulators and boasting about 'Jedi mind tricks,' expose not just negligence but cruelty. When safety became optional at Boeing, accountability became negotiable. Capitalism with a death wish While the disasters chronicled in Titan and Downfall seem wildly different — one a private undersea expedition, the other a mass-market airliner — they are united by a deeper critique. Both documentaries argue that today's capitalism is no longer about innovation or production. It's about optics, speed, and shareholder value. Rush brashly ignored deep-sea experts because he needed hype. Boeing callously sidelined engineers because Wall Street needed dividends. In both cases, the system rewarded shortcuts and punished caution. Rush was a media darling until his hubris killed him. Boeing's CEO was paid $23 million in 2018, even as the company laid off thousands and falsified safety data. The firm spent $43 billion on stock buybacks while its planes were crashing. And when finally fined, Boeing paid $2.5 billion — less than 4% of its 2021 revenue. The pattern is unmistakable: destruction follows when corporations prioritise speed, cost-cutting, and PR over design, safety, and truth. This is not just unfair. As one analyst in Downfall puts it, 'It's not that capitalism isn't working. It's that it's no longer capable of delivering products that work.' Both films are also meditations on distraction — how capitalism commodifies even its failures. Titan became a Twitter meme faster than it became a tragedy. Downfall shows how Boeing's PR machine spun its way out of accountability, while most media outlets dropped the story once the planes were grounded. The documentaries themselves stand almost as acts of resistance: attempts to force attention back onto the lives lost, the systems failed, and the accountability evaded. The deeper tragedy is not just that people died, but that we may already be forgetting why. In our hyper-speed information In Titan, we witness the literal implosion of a vessel designed with fatal flaws by a man who believed he could bend physics to his will. In Downfall, we watch a metaphorical implosion — a company once synonymous with trust and safety reduced to an emblem of regulatory capture and corporate decay. What kind of society rewards recklessness with wealth? How did we allow institutions meant to protect us to become tools of political influence and market domination? Both are American stories. Both are capitalist stories. And both leave us with the same message: when profit becomes the only metric of success, we all become collateral damage. These documentaries are not just post-mortems; they are warnings. The sea and sky are unforgiving environments. So is reality. No matter how much money you throw at it, how many rules you bypass, or how compelling your origin myth is, eventually, the truth will catch up — with a stall, a crash, or an implosion. And when it does, it won't care how good your stock looked.
Express Tribune
5 days ago
- Express Tribune
F1 director explains why Simone Ashley's role was cut from final version of Brad Pitt film
Simone Ashley's role in the upcoming racing drama F1 has been largely removed from the final version of the film, which premieres in theaters on June 27. Although her casting alongside Brad Pitt and Damson Idris was announced in July 2024 and she was photographed filming, the Bridgerton star's appearance in the movie is minimal—with no dialogue. Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE, director Joseph Kosinski explained the decision, noting that 'two or three storylines' didn't make it into the final cut. 'It happens on every film, where you have to shoot more than you can use,' Kosinski said. Still, he praised Ashley as 'an incredible talent' and expressed interest in working with her again. Ashley has not publicly commented on the edit, but in a recent interview with ELLE, she called the filming experience 'crazy' and said, 'I have a very small part, but I'm grateful to be in that movie.' She also recalled attending multiple Grands Prix and described the adrenaline-filled set: 'Sometimes we literally had one take for certain shots… It was kind of like theater. It felt so live.' In an earlier interview with Who What Wear, Ashley shared that she had met for the film before Bridgerton even aired. 'It's Damson and Brad's movie,' she said. 'I'm just so grateful that I can be part of it.' F1—also starring Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, and Javier Bardem—is scheduled for theatrical release and IMAX on June 27, 2025.
Express Tribune
6 days ago
- Express Tribune
Demi Lovato recreates Kim Kardashian lost earring scene during honeymoon with husband Jutes
Demi Lovato paid tribute to one of reality TV's most memorable moments while honeymooning with her new husband, Jordan 'Jutes' Lutes. The singer posted an Instagram reel on June 16, 2025, in which the couple reenacted the viral 2011 Keeping Up with the Kardashians scene where Kim Kardashian loses a diamond earring in the ocean. Using original audio from the iconic episode, Lovato, 32, lip-synced Kardashian's panicked lines while standing in the ocean in a cut-out swimsuit: 'My earring's gone! Oh my God, I'm gonna cry.' Jutes, 34, played the part of Kourtney Kardashian, calmly replying with the now-famous line, 'Kim, there's people that are dying.' The reel ends with Lovato walking out of the water as Jutes delivers the closing remark, perfectly mimicking the tone of the original scene. Lovato captioned the reel with a playful, 'We had to.' The clip quickly drew laughs and praise from fans in the comment section for its spot-on impersonations. The newlyweds filmed the lighthearted moment during their honeymoon following their May 25 wedding in Santa Barbara, California. She also posted a 'Honeymoon dump' on Instagram, filled with snapshots of jet-ski rides, romantic dinners, and sun-soaked beach moments. Lovato and Jutes first met in 2022 while working on her album Holy Fvck. A source told PEOPLE that Lovato is now 'very healthy both physically and mentally' after years of personal challenges, adding, 'It's wonderful that it's all behind her.' The recreated scene references the KUWTK episode 'Getting to Know You,' where Kardashian lost her earring in Bora Bora—a moment that has since become a lasting meme
