Songoftheday 10/6/22 - I can see that you've been crying you can't hide it with a lie, what's the use in you denyin' that what you have is wrong?

 

"More Than That" - Backstreet Boys

from the album Black & Blue (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from the Backstreet Boys, whose fourth studio album Black & Blue sold a million copies in its first week, and lead single "Shape Of My Heart" returned the boy-band to the American pop top ten at the close of 2000.  The second single from the record though, the Max Martin song "The Call", suffered the same fate as the second one of their last set, "Larger Than Life", but even deeper, missing the top-40 entirely at #52. It surprised me, since it was a decent record, but not having the commercial single available for fans to grab up cursed it, since it couldn't make up the cooler reception at radio at #19 on the pop airplay list. This was done all in the name of greed to try to pump up sales of the album. Ahh, the 2000s.

Anyhoo, the third offering from the set brought the Boys back to ballad-land in "More Than That". Written by Adam Anders with producers Fred Jemberg and Pontus Wennerberg, the song has them singing to a woman who's in a bad relationship, then offers themselves as the "rebound". It's basically the same premise as rivals NSYNC's third single "This I Promise You", though these guys don't try to over-emote every damn thing. The music video has them in an airplane hangar - a common trope in 2000's pop videos...

"More Than That" returned the group to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in June of 2001. On the radio, the song went to #14 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, hit #34 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list, and did best at the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format at #6. Internationally, the single peaked at #2 on Polish radio, and reached the top-40 in Sweden (#11), the United Kingdom (#12), Romania (#12), Belgium (#14W/#44F), Ireland (#21), Germany (#25), Italy (#25), Australia (#25), Austria (#27), the Netherlands (#28), Switzerland (#28), and New Zealand (#29). The group will return to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's the group appearing on The Tonight Show...

Next up at a 2001 concert for MTV...

and lastly, on tour in 2020...

Tomorrow, I'll be doing my New Singles Round-up, while on Sunday I'm back with the New Albums Round-up.

On Monday: This singing rapper's in tears.