Meet NICK CATTER, BRIAN LITTERELL, AJ McCLAWN, HOWIE PURRROUGH, & KEVIN ITCHARDSON!

Trapped in Atwater Village and feral on arrival, these five boys were not obvious candidates for international superstardom. They hissed at management, rejected physical contact, and approached every human interaction like an ambush. But this was the ’90s, when nobody asked whether teenage boys wanted to become global pop commodities. So they were cleaned up, socialized, handed some choreography, and transformed into the biggest boy band in the world.

NICK CATTER: As the baby-faced blond heartthrob whose face is legally required to occupy the center of every Tiger Beat pullout, Nick understands that his principal contribution to the group is causing millions of adolescent girls to develop extremely unrealistic expectations about eighth-grade boys. Between the floppy blond hair, the wounded stares directly into the camera, and the general air of someone perpetually asking you to quit playing games with his heart, he is less a kitten than a carefully engineered threat to parental sanity.

BRIAN LITTERELL: Every boy band requires one member whom parents can convince themselves is “the nice one,” and Brian has accepted this enormous responsibility with the earnestness it deserves. Sweet, affectionate, and equipped with precisely the sort of choirboy charm that makes even the most overwrought key change seem reasonable, he is living proof that wholesomeness becomes considerably more marketable when packaged with cheekbones and a wind machine.

AJ McCLAWN: While the other boys are being dressed in coordinated white ensembles, AJ is somewhere demanding sunglasses, facial hair, and enough jewelry to trigger an additional TSA screening. Because no ’90s boy band could achieve global domination without one member reassuring suburban teenagers that they were flirting with danger, AJ supplies the tattoos, swagger, and vaguely disreputable energy while remaining safely contained within five-part harmony. He may have been domesticated, but management wisely left some of the feral intact.

HOWIE PURRROUGH: While Nick is detonating puberty across America and AJ is single-handedly keeping the accessories industry solvent, Howie occupies the subtler but equally important role of being the one discerning fans insist was always secretly the hottest. Smooth, charming, and blessed with enough restraint to survive both coordinated leather and the “Everybody” haunted mansion video without looking ridiculous, he doesn’t need to fight for center stage; he simply waits for everyone else’s frontal lobe development to catch up.

KEVIN ITCHARDSON: As the eldest member of a group whose business model depends largely upon synchronized yearning, Kevin provides the reassuring impression that at least somebody present could locate the emergency exit. With the eyebrows, the jawline, and the smoldering gravitas of a man contemplating something considerably more consequential than whether you should show him the meaning of being lonely, he lends adult credibility to an operation otherwise powered by hair product, pelvic choreography, and adolescent hysteria.

Three decades after their namesakes first achieved global domination, the choreography may be slightly less acrobatic and the fan base considerably more concerned about lower-back support, but apparently nobody told these boys that the screaming was supposed to stop. After transforming themselves from NELA ferals into polished pop idols, they’re ready to take the comeback tour somewhere considerably more intimate: your living room. No arena required, although an enthusiastic audience, unlimited snacks, and a lifetime commitment are written into the rider.

Backstreet’s back, alright.

The Backstreet Boys will be delivered vaccinated, microchipped, flea treated, dewormed, FIV/FeLV tested, and neutered.