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Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 10:32AM 
Guys Who Just Want To Kiss Girls
by ALMIE ROSE
The first concert I ever went to was a Backstreet Boys concert. Why am I freely admitting this? Well, friends, it could have been worse. The first concert I could have ever gone too could have been a Tal Bachman concert. Remember that dude? He whined about how a girl was so "high above me." Also, she was "lovely. Like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite." The inner all-girls school graduate within me is screaming over his use of historic examples. Really, Tal? Joan of Arc? She got you going? She hit your “lovely” meter?
I hate only because I kind of love that song. It’s got a great melody, and I have fond memories associated with it. Like one time, I busted out singing it and Tom Hanks walked into the room and stared at me and just kind of backed out. I could provide more details as to why I was singing this and why Tom Hanks was there but that would take away the humor and mystery to this story and if anything, I’m all about "building a mystery." Remember that great 90s hit by perpetual throat-voice Sarah McLachlan? But that’s not important right now.
I went to this Backstreet Boys concert because my friend Gavin invited me. Gavin lived in a huge house in Brentwood and had an endless stream of tickets to the most coveted concerts of the 90s- early 2000s. Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, Madonna (before she wore Britney Spears t-shirts in one of her first of many desperate attempts to stay relevant) – Gavin was hooked up and my best friend in middle school.
So when she asked me to go with her to a Backstreet Boys concert (with limo) what was I supposed to say? “No thanks, that’s lame as hell, I'm an unpopular loser who listens to The Beatles?" No, I said, "Like, oh my God, thanks! I love…Kevin!" To be honest, Kevin was a fucking crapshoot. I couldn’t remember if I knew the name Kevin from ‘N Sync, 98 Degrees, or Backstreet Boys, but I guessed right. Later when I went to the concert and saw who Kevin was, I couldn’t help but feel the pangs of disappointment that I would if I was set up with an undesirable blind date.
But the concert was fucking fun and fucking exciting. When the Boys appeared in a burst of flames, hanging from wires, screaming, "BACKSTREET’S BACK, ALL RIGHT!" I fucking believed them. I didn’t know much about them, I didn’t have any of their albums, but goddamn it, Backstreet was back, and it was all right. Never mind that their "zombie dance" from their Halloween themed video was a poor rip-off of the Thriller dance – the point is, it was our Thriller, and we couldn’t see the lame forest from the lame-ass trees.
When Kevin got stuck in his wires, and hung helplessly in mid-air, I fucking felt for him. When he then did somersaults for his fans, I fucking fell in love with him a little bit. I didn’t notice that he was in his early thirties and had un-ironic facial hair. I went to an all-girls school and this was it. Before we left I bought a concert tee – a baseball style-shirt, white with red sleeves, that had the BSB logo front and center on my sad little breasts, complete with the whole band sitting down, smiling, as if to say, "We’re non-threatening, but not like those pussies Hanson. We may be 'boys' but we’re men – just look at our facial hair!"
For my birthday my dad bought me a copy of the Boys latest album – Millennium. I have since sold this album. Yes, I regret this decision. Who knew that at a certain point in time, Backstreet would be back and it would be all right and not even in an ironic way? I didn’t.
This was the early 2000s. J. Lo was a music star and I had to pretend to care. I could never have predicted this world of Internet downloads and Kanye and blogging. I was lame, I was scared, I had braces, and I thought "I Want It That Way" was a great pop song. Was it really any worse than "I Want To Hold Your Hand"? It sounds like blasphemy, I know, but really listen to The Beatles’ earlier songs. Their songs are about guys who just want to kiss girls. They’re really no different from any other pop songs. And the Backstreet Boys had that strange music video where they’re in LAX Airport and their bodies shift and disappear and everything is white and bright and you feel like the millennium really is here, and pop music really isn’t bad, it’s fun and it’s dumb and it’s something you can dance to and use to relate to your peers, and really, what’s so bad about that?
Gavin invited me to a second Backstreet Boys concert. The day of, I didn’t go to school. I wasn't that sick, I just didn’t feel like going. I was going through that awkward phase where, to quote another 90s pop icon, I wasn’t "a girl, yet not a woman." I was scared of boys, I couldn’t tell cool from tragic, and my body clung to babyfat like Stallone clung to cliffs in his action movies.
Gavin’s mother called my mom, worried that if I was too sick to attend school, how on earth could I attend a concert with her daughter without getting her sick with my disease? My mom did my dirty work for me, explaining that while I had a sore throat I was feeling "much better" and "wasn’t contagious" and was just "taking precautions" and "would be devastated" to miss the concert. Another limo, another show, but this time my enchantment wore off. I wasn’t alone; the Backstreet Boys faded away, 'N Sync soared, Britney ruled, then Beck came in and ruined everything and pop music wasn’t cool and anyone who liked it should kill themselves.
Before we left this concert I bought another tee. This one was dark blue with sparkles, with the same BSB logo and similar photo of the guys; it was like my shirt was the night sky. Look at it, find the North Star, and make a wish. I have no idea what happened to these t-shirts. I guess when I became "cool" I gave them away. I wish I didn’t, but at least I have my Britney concert tee. When I went to her concert I pretended it was only because my parents scored the tickets for me, not admitting that I casually begged them for it ("I mean, if you guys are going to that silent auction and you see tickets to a Britney concert I mean I guess it would be fun to go, but only if the tickets come in like a basket of other stuff or something, I mean I don’t know, whatever supports the school, you know? PLEASE GET THEM, PLEASE!").
Christina Aguilera may have told me what a girl wants and what a girl needs but I was fucking clueless and looked nothing like Alicia Silverstone. I did the best I could and I had a great time. And the best thing is, is that I wanted it that way.
Almie Rose is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find her website here. She last wrote in these pages on your guide for summer. You can find the full archive of her writing on This Recording here.
"On Without You" - Backstreet Boys (mp3)
"I Want It That Way" - Backstreet Boys (mp3)
"Don't Try This At Home" - Backstreet Boys (mp3)
Reader Comments (10)
Such twisted revisionist history going on here -- Beck suddenly appeared in 2000 to make pop music un-cool?
Eh fair enough. I was more referring to 1999 when the Midnite Vultures album came out. This was my first introduction to Beck and for some reason this album hit my group of friends hard. Perhaps The White Stripes would have been a better reference. Garage rock and all that. I am not Chuck Klostermann, I do what I can.
Hey! Great read. I went through a similar phase, only my Beck wasn't as cool. (Who it was, I will never tell.) But I got over it; thank you for writing this!
Haha, you ACTUALLY remember the name of the guy who sang that 'she's so high' song. Telling.
Almie, respondeat superior would allow me to collect damages from This Recording for allowing you to remind me of Tal Bachman, right? BECAUSE I HAD REALLY SUCCESSFULLY FORGOTTEN HIM.
beck ruined a lot of things for me, including hair down to my shoulders
This is great. Though I feel an explanation your your female friend being named 'Gavin' was sorely missing.
Aw fail.
Half of SoCal names their daughters (or golden retrievers) Gavin so it wasn't much of a leap.
I am apreciating it very much.I have never read such a lovely article and I am coming back tomorrow to continue reading. harry winston