Backstreet Boys Announce First Christmas Album They Say Has Been 'Nearly 30 Years in the Making'
Backstreet Boys Instagram
It's Christmas in July for fans of the Backstreet Boys!
The beloved boy band announced on Thursday that they've made a Christmas album, their first since the group was formed in 1993!
"It's been nearly 30 years in the making but we're FINALLY putting out a Christmas album and couldn't be more excited to share it with you all," the vocal group — made up of Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson — wrote on Instagram.
The album, titled A Very Backstreet Christmas, is set to release on Oct. 14, though pre-orders are available now. It includes 13 songs, three of them originals and the others covers of classic Christmas classics.
Among them, a version of WHAM's "Last Christmas," which can be heard in an Instagram video the band released to announce news of the LP.
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Dorough told Entertainment Tonight that "Last Christmas" is "a really strong contender of being the first single" for the album.
He explained that it took a while for the band to decide on which tracks to include on A Very Backstreet Christmas, with more than 50 songs in the running at one point.
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Band members finally found time to make their first Christmas album during the onset of the pandemic when their Backstreet Boys' DNA World Tour, which originally began in 2019, had to stop halfway through.
"Believe it or not COVID gave us the gift of time to work on this record," Dorough said. "We started working on this about two years ago. Normally, during regular times, we're always on tour. So, now that we have the time off we started working on it."
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The Backstreet Boys restarted their DNA World Tour in February 2022 with four shows in Las Vegas.
Additional tour stops in major US cities have since been announced, including Nashville, Memphis and Portland, as well as the addition of a European leg of the tour kicking off in Portugal on Oct. 3. The tour will conclude next March in New Zealand.
On Sunday, the Backstreet Boys had a special visitor in Toronto native Drake, who surprised the audience during the band's tour stop there.
The rapper, 35, whom the Backstreet Boys called their "sixth member," joined the band to perform their iconic song "I Want It That Way."
