Millennium

This is a classic album in the boy band genre, but that does not make it a classic in general. The uptempo songs are ok, though generic and commercial. The ballads, there are a lot on this album, are an absolute horror to listen to.

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Larger than life, I want it that way, Show me the meaning pf being lonely, It’s gotta be you, Don’t want you back, The one

Should everyone try a Hostess snack cake before they die? You bet! I’d suggest a sample of some high-production boy band music too. Too much may be too damn sweet, but it sure makes a tasty treat now and again.

This album brought lots of joy to folks when it came out, and it's easy to hear why. Loved the fun and nostalgic listen today!

Can't go wrong with this album. The defining late 90s boy band album along with NSYNC. You already know the good songs from this album.

Absolutely loaded front half representative of a whole genre and place and time, and a second half to get loaded and make whoopie to

There are no guilty pleasures, just pleasures. And this one belongs in that category.

lmao It always annoys me how unironically good these guys are 4 The ending revealing them as mommas boys is really funny. (And wholesome)

Pop comercial. Muuuuchas baladas. Un 1, por pesados.

Can't deny the candy pop perfection of I Want It That Way... it is truly one of the best pop songs ever. The other released hits here are also pretty good, but once you get past that, it contains what you would expect for high-school-relationship-level filler... though the Perfect Fan is certainly cringe too. I'll ignore a bit of those down sides based on the fact that it has 5 strong hits.

You know, it's more precision manufactured mainstream pop. I don't disdain this kind of thing and it was generally a decent listen with some cringey interludes. There's undeniable talent here both in the singers and in the faceless team of artists, engineers and business types crafting the whole simulacra of intimate human connection. But as always for me this kind of thing is a little too slick overall, a little too edgeless and superficial.

It contains one of the greatest pop singles of ALL TIME. Then two okay ones, then photocopies those three songs three times with diminishing returns. So both a perfect and an irritating reminder of the state of pop in 99

It's not the Backstreet Boys' best album by far, but it's probably the last one that reached their peak, as from then on, they didn't perform very well. The album has pop, melody, and ballads, but it's not particularly outstanding because they were already aiming for more mature songs that weren't necessarily up to par.

This group only ever made 2 songs

I’ve never been a fan of this music and I’m quite sure I didn’t need to hear this one before I die. But, to be fair, this is a pretty definitive pop album for its time. This music was everywhere in 1999-2000. My specific issue with this album is just how one-note (okay, two-note, actually) it sounds. The majority of the album consists of syrupy, soft focus ballads, with just a couple of bouncy party songs to mix it up. The first track is kind of bait and switch in that regard, offering a fairly strong energy that the rest of the album is unable to match. On the whole, the ballads have probably aged better than the upbeat tracks, but it’s hard to tease out differences in the songs as the album progresses. I will always defend “I Want It That Way” though as one of the great pop songs of its era. The rest of the album really pales by comparison. Fave Songs: I Want It That Way, Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely, It's Gotta Be You

The vocal harmonies are nice, but the formulaic composition here means all the tracks feel the same. Three songs in and the formula was pretty clear – single-singer verse, harmonic chorus, a key change to try and get some excitement going, end track. Couple this with the fact all of the tempos are within 10 BPM of each other, and the whole thing starts to seem like the producers forget the 101s of good songwriting. There's no contrast to give this LP any definition, no hard edges or personality to show really.

Larger than Life is an awesome banger, hyperpop from when the word wasn't even invented. Everything else is 1-star garbage.

A classic for all the millennials but when you really listen to the album it’s really just the two bangers in the beginning and then a bunch of R&B ballads mixed in with some ultra produced pop. Between them and nsync pop music dominated the early 00s but outside of a couple songs they didn’t create memorable albums, just a few hits. 5.5/10

Some bangers but ends on really bland stuff

https://youtu.be/HlBYdiXdUa8

The person the proposed this must be joking. I finished it, but my ears are bleeding. They have a song about the "perfect fan". Their mom...

No joke, this could be the worst album of either list. This is terrible, terrible schlock.

This is the boy band recipe. You have the shy one, the bad boy, the stylish one, the alternaboy, and the other guy. Add in songs about heartbreak and loving your girl. Bake for the duration of 12 songs and try not to cringe at the banality.

Amazing that a 12-year-old girl completed the full 1,001 project because who else could have recommended these schlocky dreamboats? Speaking personally, one still views the Monkees as the greatest ever boy band.

Stone cold hits and chill piano R&B ballads. These boys had better chops than a lot of us gave them credit for.

A great example of a good boy band album

Backstreet Boys are one of those groups where everyone knows their singles, but I'm guessing absolutely no one (me included) knows the rest of the album. And for this album, the first 3 songs were big singles. Listening to the rest of it in 2025, it just sounds like nameless boy band pop of its time. Max Martin's Desmond child knockoff songwriting, punchy production, no character whatsoever. lol. Soppy ballad, upbeat dance tune, soppy ballad, upbeat dance tune, etc etc. I guess they filled these albums with whatever b-tier tracks they had lying around, just to pad out the length so they could release the singles. Pretty fuckin catchy singles but. 3/5.

Very catchy... just like Covid.

Too many negative associations with this for my youth to give it a fair shake. I would give it a 1 but I think that’s disdain for the style that is unfair.

Alright!

In my review of my submitted album, I complained about the lack of pop music on the list. This is a prime example. Backstreet Boys had a massive impact on pop music in the late 90s. This album was everywhere and it influenced a generation of pop music. It baffles me that they were excluded. Now is the music good? It's Max Martin so you know what you're getting. It's perfectly fine pop music. The great songs are bangers and the rest is very listenable. There is a reason it sold millions of copies. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes.

Squaring pop music in the 21st century means reconciling its roots with boy bands and girl groups of the '90s. The Spice Girls, N'Sync, and the Backstreet Boys took pop music to the furthest reaches of consumerism by emphasizing the presentation above the music. Hooks ruled everything even if they didn't make sense, choreography was a staple of every song, and a refocus on the teen market as a core demographic. Built on the back of two singles (one energetic dancepop song and one inescapable ballad), Millennium is the peak of this boy band mountain before everyone started going solo in the 2000s. It's loaded with ballads to pad out the runtime because no one gives a fuck about the rest of the album. It closes on a cheesy song about how much the boys love their mothers. "I love you mom" said with the earnestness of someone trying to sell the image of a mama's boy to teen girls so they have something else to swoon over. Are the singles good? Sure, but the rest of the album sure isn't. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Tough call! Much like Britney Spears on the actual list, it's difficult to talk about pop music without them. That said, it was never really about the album. So, maybe not.

First three songs are bangers. There is no shame in admitting that. We all know it to be true. Then just when you start to think to yourself: "Wait, hold on, am I actually really enjoying a Backstreet Boys album?", the rest of the album starts and you suddenly find yourself listening to 9 different songs they'd play in a DreamWorks movie while an animated animal sadly looks at his reflection in a puddle of rain. That being said, this definitely should have been on the original list. One of the best selling albums of all time. Massive cultural influence.

Tedious

I couldn't manage all the ballads at the end sadly. I really tried, I promise. 2 classic pop tracks, and then so much awfulness.

it's well produced pop, it's so aggressively late 90s though, so many "yeahs" throughout every song, slow songs (and the majority of tracks) are unbearable and doesn't even have the one Backstreet boys song I knew so can't honestly give it any higher, even if the opener is pretty good, the rest of the album blends all together as dirge.

Pish

I hate to feed the trolls, but you gotta be fucking kidding me. Why would someone submit this to the list unless they were trolling? late-80s pop sound for an album released in 1999 - this album was dated when it came out. Nothing interesting or innovative here, just a couple of big hits.

F*ck off. I mean, seriously, f*ck off. Max Martin, Mutt Lange and the interchangeable Swedish producers guilty of shitting this turd all over the world in 1999 have done ten times better elsewhere, and even there you could take the results quite derisively. But *this* particular teen pop LP deserves more than spite. This record deserves outrage. Because it is simply an insult to music and art in general. Charts and graphs are behind every single note of *Millennium*, and there's not a single moment that shows authenticity or genuine artistic ambition as a result. ZERO risks are taken here. All you have is formulaic chords, formulaic arrangements and formulaic intents. Anything to keep the target audience in their sterile comfort zone. And I'm not even talking about the poster boys fronting this thing, whose soulless and standardized vocal performances would make Britney Spears and Robbie Williams sound like Nina Simone or Leonard Cohen in comparison. No one in their right mind remembers the names of those guys today anyway. Because there's more feeling, sincerity and artistry in the moves of a food company employee wrapping plastic foil around frozen chicken thighs in an assembly line than in anything that comes out of the mouth of those dumb blokes. I'm dead serious here. Speaking of sincerity, I've also read the most popular reviews written by the person who submitted this album a long time before they would finish going through the original list, and I'm not doubting their seriousness and earnestness for one second. I'm just doubting their overall taste, sensibility, knowledge and listening abilities. But what do I know? I'm just an aging hipster guy among millions of others, probably taking good music appreciation a little too seriously... Hence the aggro tone in the first lines of this review. That said... well, f*ck off anyway. A leopard can't change its spots, I guess. 0/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 3/10 for more general purposes (3/5 for the production values + 0/5 for the artistry). Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 16 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 28 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 57 (including this one) ---- Émile ! J'ai répondu à ton message. Regarde environ 15 reviews au dessus ! Pas de nouvelle réponse de ta part, mais c'est pas un souci, je compte juste vérifier toutes les deux semaines environ. On est pas aux pièces, comme on dit sur le vieux continent