Paul's SONG OF THE YEAR 1999: "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys
Jul 12 '05
The Bottom Line In which the author defends a controversial choice.
tdswift89 writes:
Dear Paul,
I'm really digging this series, & it seems to be getting better as you go further back by year.
I've been curious about how you choose the songs that don't make #1. Especially this year with Madonna's "Music" and RHCP's "Californication". I love both of these songs too.
Tim S
Well, Tim... here goes:
A while back Time caught hella flak for the mere suggestion that they might be considering naming Osama bin-Laden "Person of the Year" for their annual wrap-up issue. Understandably, coming mere months after the shock of 9/11, there were a lot of folks for whom the wounds were simply too fresh to abide by such a strange action. After all, many folks wondered, how dare such a respectable publication honor Terrorist #1 with such a distinction?
The key word here is honor, and in Time's defense, it was often pointed out that that "of the year" title wasn't an honor so much as an amoral statement of importance, and clearly Osama bin-Laden's importance to the shape of my heart- err- shape of the world at the end of 2001 could not be underestimated. Nevertheless, the idea was quickly (and probably wisely) jettisoned in favor of something a little easier to stomach - say, oh, Rudy Giuliani (woops, did I say 'easier to stomach'?).
That same year, the Grammy Awards were faced with a similarly difficult choice. For the coveted Album of the Year, the nominees included a couple of challenging (and - gasp - worthy) picks by Beck and Radiohead, along with the typical oldsters Steely Dan and Paul Simon. The wild card, of course, was Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP, which going by Time's proposed-but-fatally-vulnerable-to-the-small-minded-but-totally-vocal-majority standard of influence-over-honorability should have been the clear winner.
Predictably, like Time would do later that year, Grammy took the easy road, and delivered Steely Dan their first Grammy trophy. Was it an act of cowardice? Or was NARAS merely taking an opportunity to right a wrong, finally recognizing a worthy artist, long after they'd seen their best days, a full quarter century after such recognition might have meant anything? It doesn't matter really. It was just more proof (as if we really needed it) that the Grammy Awards are totally irrelevant, and divorced from the day's artistic reality.
But, dear Tim. Dear, dear Tim. You and I both know that I'm not Time. And you and I both know that I'm not NARAS either. And I simply have to name the Songs of the Years as I see... er hear 'em. And my criteria are much like Time's in their purest sense: namely, my Songs of the Years are the ones that proved most influential to me, the ones that, when I think back to a specific year in my life, seem to define that period for me. My judgment is free from the influence of morality or good taste. This isn't an honor I'm bestowing; these aren't the best songs of the years. Just the songs.
Why, the gentle reader might ask, am I bringing all this up now, when maybe it might have been more appropriate, say, five entries ago? Well, I'll tell you.
Sometimes, in my extreme artistic integrity, I'm forced to make difficult Rudy vs. Osama choices in my song selection, choices that could devastate my credibility no matter which one I pick. Case in point:
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PAUL'S SONG OF THE YEAR 1999: "I Want It That Way" by Backstreet Boys
Pray, gentle readers! Lay down your arms, and throw away your rotten tomatoes! For certainly I know that, no matter how slim the pickin's, no matter how feebly the musical fields issued forth their fruits (and vegetables) while most of us were too busy updating our computer software for Y2K compliance to pay attention, to call "I Want It That Way" the greatest musical acheivement of 1999 would constitute a massive failure of the mnemonic imagination, a gigantic crashing of the servers, a blue screen of death multiplied over the millions and billions, et cetera.
If this were a series of the best songs of the various years, "I Want It That Way" wouldn't stand a chance (well, maybe a small chance, but more on that later). For a few of my picks that I might have called "the best" if in fact that's what this series was about, you can check below. But my Song of the Year for 1999 was and is, indisputably "I Want It That Way".
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From a strictly autobiographical standpoint, this song marks a serious development in the evolution of my musical taste. Even though the Backstreet Boys had already been ruling the pop charts for nearly two years by the time this song hit, I was, at best, oblivious of them. The Backstreet Boys were a nothing, the latest Europop invention, another product to fill the void left by the withering departures of early 90s radio favorites like Take That and Boyzone, (who in turn had filled the same void left by late-80s pretty boys like Breathe and Waterfront).
Back then, my indie-snob disdain for anything Top 40 had been fermenting for nearly a decade, and I wore its stench like a cheap cologne; anyone within smelling distance would know where I stood regarding something like the Backstreet Boys, and like any other Guido wearing too much fragrance, I was sure that my obviously discriminating tastes, and my profligacy in disseminating my totally indie-correct musical opinions, made me attractive, or at least desirably intellectual.
Or something.
Little did I know that my musical pretensions' days were numbered, for this new guy I was dating, this super-nice James fellow I'd just met in an AOL chat room (really!), unbeknownst to me until it was too late and we were living together, was the kind of guy who not only had a measly, pitiful, malnourished CD collection (What? Only 96? And what are all these cheap Time/Life compilations?), but who had no clue exactly what he had in his CD collection. (What? You mean you didn't know Aretha Franklin sang "Respect"? But you have her 30 Greatest Hits, for heaven's sake!) This was a guy who thought that a song wasn't "good" unless it got radio airplay, and lots of it.
No matter how attractive, both physically and emotionally, this James guy might have been to me, his attitude towards music (and movies and books) was like an overgrown nosehair creeping out of his nostril and tickling my upper lip everytime we kissed, that one monumental (but superficial) flaw that I had to hurdle. James adored country music and classic rock, both tolerable enough I suppose; but he love-love-loved the Backstreet Boys.
And as Blanche duBois might have said: Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate Backstreet Boys fandom is NOT FORGIVABLE.
Well, okay, it was. Forgivable, that is. And after awhile it was sort of endearing too. For his birthday that year, I showered him with Backstreet Boy and NSYNC fangirl paraphernalia, chunky magnets and nightlights and little pin-up posters. I learned to celebrate my 35-year-old man's 12-year-old-girl musical tastes.
And the ubiquitous "I Want It That Way" came to represent those tastes, as I spent the year playfully rubbing James's nose in them. I perfected my Backstreet Boy parody moves; I learned to emulate A.J. MacLean's soulfully vapid "Yeah", and Nick Carter's nasally, questionably pitched whine. Soon, I was performing the song for our friends at summertime get-togethers, dubious choreography included! One day, while grocery shopping, the song came over the Muzak system, and I Backstreeted briefly for a cluster of rapt elementary school girls in the cereal aisle to the visible dismay of James (and their mother).
I never suspected that they would all have the last laugh. In my incessant mockery of the song and the Boys who delivered it, I had inadvertently, and quite terrifyingly, become a fan.
What could it have been? Was it Brian Littrell's awkward earnestness? Was it all the incessant and weirdly vague hand-gesturing, the white button-downs and berets blowing in the breezy video? Was it the easy-going beat, a perfect tempo for a just-after-sunrise stroll with the headphones; or could it have been the strangely inscrutable lyrics, which at first glance seem like generic Top 40 pap, but on closer examination are brimming with half-finished thoughts and willful contradictions that can't simply be explained away with the English-as-Second-Language excuse. Whoever this supposed former Scandinavian metalhead named Max Martin was, I had come to understand that he was a genius.
And when the Boys' next album Black and Blue came out, I was first in line to pick it up. James, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less by then. Now, he makes fun of me for liking the Backstreet Boys. Some might say I got what I deserved.
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SONG LYRICS:
Yeah
You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way
But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
Am I your fire
Your one desire
Yes I know it's too late
But I want it that way
Now I can see that we're falling apart
From the way that it used to be, yeah
No matter the distance
I want you to know
That deep down inside of me...
You are my fire
The one desire
You are
You are, you are, you are
Don't wanna hear you say
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
(Don't wanna hear you say)
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
(Don't wanna hear you say it)
I want it that way
I want it that way
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SONG CREDITS:
Written by Max Martin / Andreas Carlsson
Produced by Max Martin and Kristian Lundin
Performed by Backstreet Boys
Brian Littrell: vocals
Nick Carter: vocals
A.J. MacLean: vocals
Howie Dorough: vocals
Kevin Richardson: vocals
Esbjorn Ohrwall: guitar
Tomas Lindberg: bass
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CHART INFO:
#6 Hot 100
#1 Adult Contemporary
(Billboard)
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OTHER IMPORTANT (TO PAUL) SONGS OF 1999:
"Holiday" by Jason Falkner
"Tender" by Blur
"I Try" by Macy Gray
"Get Set" by Taxiride
"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" by Counting Crows
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Member: Paul Lorentz
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