Brian Littrell once joked in a 2014 interview: “To this day, I don’t know what ‘I want it that way’ means. But when 50,000 people sing it back to you, it means everything.”
And then, there is the bridge. The "Kevin Richardson spoken word" moment is a trope of the era, but here it serves as the calm before the storm, leading into Nick Carter’s explosive crescendo. Carter’s voice, slightly strained and full of teenage angst, delivers the line, "Now I can see that we've fallen apart..." It is the emotional peak of the song, the moment where the teenager in the bedroom mirror grabs a hairbrush and belts it out with genuine feeling. Backstreet Boys - I want it that way -Fuentez -...
In 2017, a Reddit user claiming to be Fuentez’s nephew posted: “My uncle Carlos played the arpeggios. He said Max Martin made him redo it 40 times until it ‘felt like a heartbeat.’ They paid him $800 and a pizza.” The post was deleted, but screenshots remain. Brian Littrell once joked in a 2014 interview: