Backstreet Boys: 'Helpless When She Smiles'

Though we still think of them as a "boy" band, the Backstreet Boys are to all intents and purposes a veteran act these days: they don't light up the charts the way they used to - their last single, 'Inconsolable', stalled at number 24 in October - but they can still fill an arena from Tallinn to Tokyo. In fact, Nick Carter and co. are gallivanting round the UK's enormodromes as you read.

'Helpless When She Smiles', the tour's tie-in single, is an utterly faceless soft rock ballad: guitars without teeth, technically proficient but anonymous vocals and a chorus that sounds good at the time but leaves no trace that it ever existed. Honestly, it's going to take a lot of arena show stagecraft to breathe some life into this one.


> Click here to read our recent interview with A.J. from the Backstreet Boys