As a 90’s child, I was constantly surrounded by boy bands. 98 Degrees, N’Sync, but best of all, the Backstreet Boys. The group started out in 1993 in Orlando, Florida with five members. In 1996, the band released its first album which was an instant success. They  released 2 more albums before taking a 2-year break and then released a comeback album, Never Gone. After the Never Gone tour, one of the group’s members, Kevin Richardson left the band. Two more albums were released by the quartet, and then Richardson came back permanently, just in time for the group to put together an album for its 20th anniversary. I personally stopped listening to the Backstreet Boys after they released their 3rd album, perhaps because their other albums just weren’t quite the same. But just to show how popular and famous they were, here’s a few stats. The Backstreet Boys have sold over 130 million albums worldwide. That makes them the best selling boy band of all time. They are the first group since Sade to have its first 9 albums hit the top 10 on the Billboard 200.

Attempting to gain stardom, the group nearly signed on with Mercury Records. However, the deal fell through at the last minute because John Mellencamp threatened to leave the label if they signed on the Backstreet Boys. The group was later discovered performing at a high school and was signed onto its first label. They went to Sweden to work on their first album, which was released internationally in May 1996, excluding the U.S. and Canada. In Germany, they were especially popular, reaching Gold status for selling 250,000 albums. The group also earned their first platinum album in Germany in 1996 for selling 500,000 albums. They went on to tour in Canada and Asia. Their self titled album sold over five million copies in Europe alone. They released their albums in Europe to see how the sales would do that first day. The day after the album was released, it was released in the U.S. Sales skyrocketed, selling more than 28 million copies internationally.

It is thought that N’Sync was a close rival of the Backstreet Boys, but after further research, I found that, while the Backstreet Boys are the best-selling boys band of all time, N’Sync was number eight on that list. This just proves that there was no competition! You go, Backstreet Boys, you go.