AJ McLean Says Backstreet Boys’ Record Label Wanted Them to Change This ‘I Want It That Way’ Lyric, but It Didn’t ‘Hit Right’

The Backstreet Boys knew they had a lot riding on their second album, so they paid attention to every detail.

AJ McLean appears in Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands, in which he looks back on preparing for the release of the group’s album, Millennium.

“In our generation, you put out your first album. It does good, cool. But your second album is the one that’s going to make or break your career,” McLean, 46, explains in the documentary.

“Ours was Millennium, but it wasn’t really until we then released, from that album, the single, ‘I Want It That Way,’ that everything changed.”

McLean laughs reminiscing on how label executives were worried that the hit’s lyrics didn’t make sense.

“ ‘I never want to hear you say I want it that way,’ Exactly, you’re like what?” McLean jokes.

“They felt like this song didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t going to go anywhere,” he explains, saying they even went as far as to pitch a change. Instead, they wanted the line to be “I love it when I hear you say I want it that way.”

The group considered it, but ultimately opted to go with the original.

“It just like, it doesn’t hit right,” McLean explains.

“So they put their faith in us that we made the right call — and we made the right call.”

“I Want It That Way” went on to become the boy band’s fourth Top 10 single. The track has gone three times platinum since its April 1999 release.

Find out more about the Backstreet Boys’ rise to fame and continued success, alongside the stories of other boy bands, in Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands, now streaming on Paramount+.