Cute, menschy boy bands make traditional tunes cool
n June 2005, the Backstreet Boys released \”Never Gone,\” an album filled not with the teeth-rotting pop confections of the group\’s youth, but with songs of a more adult contemporary style.The album\’s relative failure marked a turning point in mainstream music — Backstreet wasn\’t selling, *NSYNC had disbanded and nobody ever really cared what happened to 98 Degrees. The era of the boy band was officially over. In the pop world, that is. In the Orthodox world, it had only just begun.