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News
Headlines
November
2002
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2
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Backstreet
Boys' Richardson, 98 Degrees' Lachey, Write Songs For Osmond
Offspring
back up
Source: Launch
Darryl Morden, Los Angeles
The Backstreet Boys' Kevin Richardson and 98 Degrees'
Nick Lachey have written songs for the debut album of
Stephen Craig, who is the son of Marie Osmond and the nephew
of Pyramid TV host Donny Osmond.
On Craig's Plugged-In Corporation release, That's What You
Get, Richardson penned the tracks "Just Say So"
and "Back in Love Again." Richardson has said that
his first concert was Donny and Marie, so writing for Craig
completes a musical circle for him.
Lachey co-wrote the ballad "100 Days, 100 Nights."
The album also includes "Bend Me, Shape Me," a
remake of the 1960s hit by American Breed.
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MTV
Latin Awards: From Stones to Shakira
back
up
Source: People.com
By: STEPHEN M. SILVERMAN and MICHAEL COHEN
Mick Jagger and Backstreet Boys Howie Dorough and Nick
Carter may seem like an unlikely trio, especially at a Latin
music event, but they were all inside Miami Beach's Jackie
Gleason Theater Thursday night for the first-ever MTV Video
Music Awards Latin America.
Asked by PEOPLE why he was there, Dorough, 29, replied:
"Because music is music … and the Latin sound is hot!
"
Almost as hot as the 90-degree temperature outside the
theater. With chauffeured Lincoln Navigators filling the
streets, guests such as Paulina Rubio, Iggy Pop and
model-actress Elsa Benitez (who is five months pregnant)
walked the purple carpet runway for MTV's newest ceremony.
Rubio, who was nominated for four awards, including best
female artist of the year, told PEOPLE she was
"excited" to be on hand, "because it's about
the entire Latin community and creative arts in
general."
With her feathered hair and Esteban Cortazar-designed white
leather mini skirt with matching wide-collared crop jacket,
Rubio, 31, was cheered on by the onlookers outside. But the
night belonged to Colombian superstar Shakira, who took home
five awards, including artist of the year, video of the
year, female artist of the year, pop artist of the year and
best artist (North Latin America).
Sporting her trademark golden locks, Shakira, 25, told the
appreciative crowd, "Through music we remember very
important moments and project our lives."
The two-hour show aired live in Spanish on MTV Latin America
and with English subtitles on MTV2.
The event kicked off with the not-exactly-Latin Rolling
Stones, who gave a taped introduction. The night's
headliners included Carlos Santana -- who delivered a duet
with English-language sensation Michelle Branch -- Mana and
Shakira.
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Amazon.com
Review of Nick Carter's 'Now Or Never'
back
up
Source: Amazon.com
If anything will drive a nail into the Backstreet Boys'
coffin, it's this surprisingly impressive solo album from
Nick Carter. The first of the Fab Five to break out on his
own, Carter reveals a rocker's heart that's lurked under his
high-gloss pop exterior. While he rasps and struts through
his 12-song debut, we're not talking headbanging mayhem
here. Carter excels in the brand of guitar rock that put Bon
Jovi and Bryan Adams on the map. The elder Carter conjures
the militaristic flamboyance of Queen on "Girls In The
USA," or the teasing coyness of "Raspberry
Beret"-era Prince on "My Confession." The
anthemic "Is It Saturday Yet" is another
highlight. Despite a seven-year tenure singing other
people's songs as a member of America's favorite boy band,
Carter proves himself an able tunesmith, penning five of the
tracks on the disc, and plays some fine guitar. --Jaan
Uhelszki
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USA
Today Review of Now Or Never
back
up
Source: USA Today
You can take the boy out of the boy band, but if he's as
aggressively passive a presence as Carter, you'll be
climbing uphill from there. The Backstreet refugee cowrote
many of these songs, some of them catchy in a generic,
innocuous way. But none reveals more personality than
Carter's colorless voice; instead, the singer emerges as a
kind of wholesomely macho cypher. He's Bryan Adams-like
balladeer on the sappy "Do I Have to cry for you",
a Jon Bon Jovi-esque crooner on "Heart Without A Home
(I'll be yours)" and a leering frat boy on the witless
"Girls In The USA". The Lyrics are as
excruciatingly banal and dopey as the song titles suggest.
Surely no one expected Carter to turn into Elvis Costello
overnight, but it's hard to listen to the refrain "Take
it off, take it off / Let's get it on, get it on" on a
full stomach.
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Backstreet
Boy Flies Solo back
up
Source: The Saskatoon StarPhoenix
After spending a decade as a Backstreet boy, Nick Carter is
giving up his dancing shoes and heavily chreographed moved
that propelled the Backstreet Boys to inernational fame.
Instead, he's picking up pen and paper, as well as a guitar
and drum sticks so he can "rock out" on his solo
effort, Now or Never.
Carter, 22, says he felt a need to branch out after years of
being in Backstreet.
"When I first started recording and writing songs, I
had a lot of stuff inside me as a little kid that I couldn't
get out or express too much because you're in a band and
when you're young you just don't know how to do things or
express yourself," he says about his early days in the
business at age 12.
"But now I started to find myself just by being by
myself. I wasn't in that situation where I had the four
other guys around me...which I loved, they pretty much
raised me, but you have to step out and find yourself in
order to be somebody and that's what I've done with the
music."
After Backstreet Boys' 2001 Black and Blue tour, the
youngest band member went into the studio while the boys
were on hiatus "to see what happens, not to record an
album," he explains. But after goofing around for a
week with some producers he left with eight songs, including
the ballad, Do I Have To Cry For You.
"The record company got really excited," he
recalls in an interview during a recent stop in Toronto to
promote his CD. "They were happy that I could actually
write songs."
Carter co-wrote most of the dozen songs on the rock-infused
pop album. He's replaced the Backstreet Boys' harmony-laden
pop melodies with some '80s rompin' rock flavour a la Bon
Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Journey style. The
sound is especially prominent on Girls in the USA, Miss
America and I Stand For You.
Carter is eager to persuade anyone who will listen that his
evolution to solo artist isn't a gimmick but a natural part
of his evolution as an artist.
"It's going to be difficult in some people's eyes to
see me do this," the blue-eyed singer admits. "It
might take a while for people to accept it just like it was
before with the Backstreet Boys."
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