Backstreet Boys
photo: toglenn · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗The Backstreet Boys were assembled in Orlando in 1993 by promoter Lou Pearlman, who modeled the five-piece — A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell — on the harmony-group template of acts like New Kids on the Block and Boyz II Men. Breaking first in Europe before conquering the United States with 'Millennium' (1999), they became the defining boy band of the late 1990s, pairing gliding five-part R&B harmonies with glossy dance-pop production. Their blend of tender ballads and up-tempo pop set the commercial blueprint that later teen-pop and boy-band acts, One Direction among them, would inherit.
The Backstreet Boys were built in part on the five-part-harmony ballad formula of Boyz II Men, whose lush pop-R&B slow jams were a clear model for the group's tender, close-harmony ballads.
listen forPut Boyz II Men's 'I'll Make Love to You' beside 'I'll Never Break Your Heart' — listen for the same hushed, interlocking harmonies cradling a single soaring lead, the ballad delivered as a devotional promise.
The group descends from the teen-R&B boy-band template New Edition helped establish — a set of young voices trading leads over bright, danceable production — and the Backstreet Boys' up-tempo cuts carry that same choreographed, call-and-response energy.
listen forCue New Edition's 'Cool It Now' and then 'Everybody (Backstreet's Back)' — both bounce on a peppy, chant-along hook with members tossing quick solo lines back and forth over an irresistible dance groove.
The Jackson 5 are the ur-template every later boy band traces back to — youthful voices, tight choreography, and buoyant pop-soul — and the Backstreet Boys' brightest, most kinetic singles sit squarely in that lineage.
listen forSet the Jackson 5's 'I Want You Back' against 'Larger Than Life' — hear the same explosive, up-tempo joy, a young group riding a relentless groove and a chorus engineered for maximum crowd euphoria.