CD of the Week: Bop Boys!

VARIOUS ARTISTS
"BOP BOYS!"
(Priority, 1998)

I've had several people ask me, the first time I've given them one of my mix CDs, how I manage to find all the artists and songs from outside the U.S. that I invariably include on them. That got me to thinking about how and where my appetite for these off-the-beaten-path music treasures was first triggered. Well, through careful forensic analysis, I've identified the source -- the "flashpoint", if you will -- of my seemingly insatiable hunger for imported rock and pop music. This, folks, is the CD that started it all.

"Bop Boys!" was a compilation put out by Priority Records in 1998, in conjunction with teen magazine "Bop". It was a shrewdly executed release -- the boyband phenomenon had just washed ashore in America (NSYNC's first album had been released here just three months earlier, and the Backstreet Boys' U.S. debut less than a year before), giving them a jump on any potential competition, plus most of the tracks on it were from albums that weren't commercially available in the United States (and to this day never have been). Consequently, the compilation's track listing has far fewer well-known artists and serves as a unique sampler of worldwide teen pop from an American perspective.

The most recognizable artist on the compilation, the Backstreet Boys, kick off the proceedings with a rarely-heard acoustic version of one of their early hits. Then, from the United States (98 Degrees, Aaron Carter, Imajin), to the UK (911, Peter Andre, Boyzone), to France (Worlds Apart, G Squad), the listener has plenty of fun hopping around the boy-pop globe. But it would be two unsuspecting tracks, nestled side-by-side in the middle of the disc, that would dazzle my ears and forever affect my attitudes toward music. It was this album that introduced me to the silky-smooth soul-glazed vocals of Kavana, and the enchantingly sophisticated pop mastery of Espen Lind, for the very first time.

It could only be fate that this CD came along at the same time I was discovering eBay, and the wonderful ease with which it could be used to find obscure music from all corners of the world. Within weeks I had albums by both Kavana and Espen Lind, thoroughly loved them both, and was eagerly seeking out similar artists. I would occasionally even buy CDs from artists completely unknown to me, wondering what aural delights might be hiding under the cover art, and that undoubtedly expanded my appreciation for other kinds of music I might otherwise never have been motivated to try.

Sure, there have been plenty of duds along the way, but I shudder to think what my world would be like today without some of the truly outstanding albums I've added to my collection in the last decade. I fully suspect that a large percentage of them I found as either a direct or indirect result of my exposure to this compilation. I was a music fan before, but this CD was the key to unlocking a veritable floodgate of sounds that seemed unlike anything I had ever heard. Maybe this CD is nothing to some people, and maybe it didn't sell well when it first came out (prices on Amazon start at one cent), but it will always have a special sentimental value to me. Thank you, "Bop Boys!"