I Want It That Way (Five Ways)

Friends, I think it’s time to indulge in a lil musical comfort food.

What are we listening to today?

The answer: It’s ridiculous. It’s beautiful. It’s catchy as hell. It’s I Want it That Way.

This turn-of-the-millenium classic has been stuck in my head for the last several days, it’s nonsensical lyrics swirling around and around in my brain. And honestly, I’m loving it. So I thought I’d spread the joy to others via a silly little listicle.

This song has had one of the biggest pop culture footprints of any music released in the last couple of decades. It’s been ripped off, parodied and remixed in multiple different mediums. So for our video playlist today, I will rank the five best versions of I Want It That Way. My verdict is final. Take it away boys!

5. The I Want It That Way official music video (1999)

The OG video. This is where the legend begins.

I can’t lie, it is terrible. However, the things that make it terrible also make it iconic. The dramatically oversized clothes! The montages of escalators! The halfhearted shuffling they are trying to pass off as dancing. The literal BLINDING WHITENESS.

Not to mention this emotionally devastated (and incredibly late-90s) background actor.

It spawned a thousand imitators, the most blatant of which is blink-182’s video for All the Small Things; a monumentally silly but nonetheless devastating piss-take of the poor B-Boys’ effort. (Personally, I think it’s fucking hilarious.)

But this was just the beginning of this song’s journey to iconic status.

4. The Back Dorm Boys (2005)

This video is utterly iconic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of it because it’s been kind of lost of the sands of internet time.

In the earliest days of Youtube, two sculpture students at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts became amongst the first viral video stars, purely on the strength of their incredible lipsyncs. Their signature performance?

Mugging for the camera so hard it’d alarm even the most dedicated Drag Race viewer, the Back Dorm Boys created magic out of nothing but a shitty webcam and a then 6-year old pop hit. They performed many other songs but nothing beats I Want It That Way.

Tragically, the BDBs haven’t released a video in well over a decade. But don’t worry about them. They graduated from university with multiple corporate deals and eventually became TV stars in China. (Interestingly, they played a significant role in the history of the internet, and uh, capitalism, when one of their videos convinced a senior leader at Google that they should buy Youtube).

Shout out to the boys, wherever you are. I remember you!

3. The Backstreet Boys REUNITE for the iHeart Living Room Concert for America (2020)

Our OG sweet princes are BACK to help us defeat the Rona! Do you know what’s also back? WEBCAMS!!! That’s right, the Back Dorm Boys were pioneers!

Honestly, this is unbelievably cute. I love everything about it - Kevin’s adorable family band on backup, Brian’s unbelievably loud red sweatpants, the five part harmonising. There’s just a very fun, goofy vibe to the whole thing that I think really benefits the song.

(Who do we think is the cutest? Aaron Carter has definitely aged the least, possibly to an almost unsettling degree. But honestly, and this may be a controversial opinion, AJ’s the one I’m crushing on most now. I guess the Paul Giamatti vibes are doing it for me, plus his voice is sounding bee-yoootiful.)

2. Jake Peralta’s line up acapella rendition on Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2018)

Given Jake Peralta’s intense love of pop music (he’s been showing jammed out to Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Toni Braxton and 4 Non-Blondes), it was only a matter of time until the Backstreet Boys made an appearance on my beloved Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And boy, did the show make it count.

In a show full of iconic cold opens, this stands out as among the very best. Essentially a brilliant short film that contrasts the seriousness of the job with Jake’s inherent goofiness, it became a viral hit and converted multiple people to watching the show.

This show is my ultimate comfort food and I’ve watched most episodes five times or more. But this scene? 20 times or more. I’m not joking. And it could have reached number one if not for…

1. The greatest movie scene of all time in Magic Mike XXL (2015)

There was only one possible choice for #1:

When I first watched this scene in Readings Cinema, on Thursday 9 July 2015, I drunkenly turned to Emily and whispered, “this is the greatest movie scene of all time”. Nearly five years later, I’ve yet to be proven wrong.

There is nothing to say except that this - THIS is pure joy in celluloid form. And it couldn’t have worked without the accompaniment of AJ, Kevin, Brian, Nick and Howie in their greatest work. The ultimate proof of this song’s strange and wonderful magic.

God bless.

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There is one other version of the song which I haven’t included in this newsletter. And that is a video of me attempting to create Joe Manganiello’s Magic Mike while depressed, drunk and alone in mid-2015. Selected friends have viewed it, but I haven’t put it out to the world at large on account of it being very, very embarrassing. But I believe in this newsletter, so if we can get 15 subscribers and 5 contributors to The Indoor Crew by 7pm on Sunday 5 March 2020, I will release this video from the vault and subscribers will be able to view it.

So press the button below because you don’t want to miss out on that video or the incredible content I’ve previewed and is coming your way in the next couple of days.

Stay safe out there y’all!

Lily x