Backstreet Boys — "As Long as You Love Me"
The sweeping mid-tempo ballad that showcased the softer side of the BSB formula—all yearning strings and harmonies, shipped to radio without a physical single. Ineligible for the Hot 100 under 1990s chart rules, it still became a top-three hit across the world, and that folding-chair choreography in the music video became instantly iconic.
Written by Max Martin and co-produced by Martin and Kristian Lundin at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, "As Long as You Love Me" arrived late in September 1997—hitting UK radio on September 29 and US radio just a week later on October 7. The song appeared on two versions of the album simultaneously: the international Backstreet's Back and the US self-titled debut, which quietly collected the international material rather than pushing new recordings to the American market. This was the Cheiron formula at full scale: a Swedish pop machine turning out hits with mechanical precision.
The music video, directed by Nigel Dick and filmed in June 1997 in Pasadena, captured one of the band's defining images—the Boys auditioning before a panel of six women while executing the now-famous folding-chair choreography. It was a simple, elegant conceit that somehow encapsulated the entire boy-band mythology: five guys in perfect sync, proving themselves for an unseen audience.
Without a commercial single release in the US, the song was ineligible for the Hot 100 during the era it was being played. Instead, it climbed to number four on Billboard's airplay chart and logged 56 weeks on that tally, proof of the song's staying power. It became a top-three hit in both the UK and Canada, establishing the BSB's international dominance before America had fully surrendered.
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