How Metallica inspired the life and career of Backstreet Boys
On the surface, Backstreet Boys and Metallica couldn’t seem further apart. Metallica pioneered the early thrash metal genre of the 1980s, while Backstreet Boys revolutionised teen pop in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Pitting them together would seem absurd, but a deeper dive reveals just how much the popular Florida assembly owe to their trailblazing metal cousins.
During the Backstreet Boys’ rise to fame after the release of their debut in 1996, Metallica were enjoying a tumultuous year filled with events like headlining Lollapalooza and the release of their sixth studio album, Load. The following years saw Metallica’s legacy solidify while the Backstreet Boys were out busting moves to hit songs like ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’ and ‘I Want It That Way’.
The latter is undeniably one of the most Marmite contributions to the world of pop music. The song itself became endearing on account of its blend of catchy melodies, pop and R&B sensibilities, and a series of bizarre lyrics. When Swedish songwriters Andreas Carlsson and Max Martin first penned the track, they were well aware that it didn’t make a lot of sense.
As Carlsson explained to Rolling Stone: “The lyric doesn’t really mean anything,” he admitted. “The record company was like, ‘We need to bring in maybe another lyricist to help work on this.'” Despite enlisting Def Leppard and Shania Twain producer Mutt Lange to help with the song’s narrative, the band ended up recording the original version, deciding that it was better than any other iteration.
The cherry on top of the cake was a Metallica-esque riff that Carlsson states wasn’t really a common thing for boy bands to do at the time. “The last thing that was added was the ‘ba-do-do-ba-do-do-do,’ which was like a Metallica kind of riff — which was off for the boy band scene at the time,” the singer said. According to various sources, the track that inspired the song was Metallica’s iconic ‘Nothing Else Matters’.
This wasn’t the only time that the metal legends inspired the group. In 2015, the Backstreet Boys released their documentary Backstreet Boys: Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of. According to band member Howie Dorough, they drew inspiration from a Metallica documentary. “We’ve actually talked about doing a documentary for many years,” Dorough said.
Continuing, he added: “We grew up watching many other great documentaries that were out there and Nick [Carter] about a year ago saw this one about A Tribe Called Quest; it really inspired him. Then Metallica did a really, really cool documentary as well and we started thinking, ‘We really have a story to us. A lot of our fans know a lot of it, but a lot of them don’t know a lot of the personal stuff in the early days, where we came from, what it’s like making a record, the creative part of it, the good and the bad.'”
