Transcendent pop thrives on a little cognitive dissonance. debut, released in 1997, compiled the best tunes from their first two international albums, which explains why there’s a jaunty anthem called “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” on the CD that introduced them to America. They hit it big in Europe first their self-titled U.S. The Backstreet Boys-individually, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson, and Nick Carter-formed in Orlando in 1993 at the behest of blimp magnate, one-time music-industry powerhouse, and world-historical Ponzi schemer Lou Pearlman. It takes several minutes just to get people to settle down. The occasion: a two-hour live special with everyman TRL host Carson Daly to celebrate the Boys’ third international album, Millennium, which will be released that Tuesday and set the world aflame before Y2K ever gets the chance.

BSB fanatics have packed MTV’s iconic Times Square studio-home to the network’s then fairly new and immensely popular weekday music-video countdown show Total Request Live-and dangerously clogged the sidewalks outside it. They enter in heroic silhouette, striding down a smoke-filled hallway in slow motion like gangsters or astronauts, the bombastic strains of “Also sprach Zarathustra” intercut with the vibrant screams of several hundred teenage girls.

Backstreet boys tell me why number 5