The One (Backstreet Boys song)

"The One"
Single by Backstreet Boys
from the album Millennium
Released	May 16, 2000
Format	CD single
Recorded	October 1998: Cheiron Studios November 2–4, 1998: Polar Studios, Stockholm, Sweden
Genre	Pop, dance-pop
Length	3:46
Label	Jive
Songwriter(s)	Max Martin, Brian Littrell
Producer(s)	Max Martin, Kristian Lundin
Backstreet Boys singles chronology
"Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (2000) "The One" (2000) "Shape of My Heart" (2000)
"Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (2000) "The One" (2000) "Shape of My Heart" (2000)

"The One" is a song by American boy band Backstreet Boys. It was released on May 16, 2000, as the fourth and final single from their third studio album Millennium (1999).^[1]

In a 2001 interview on The View, the group stated they never really intended "The One" as their fourth single.^[2] The group held a poll on TRL allowing fans to choose the next single from their album, and after Nick Carter himself called in and voted for "The One", his large fan-base followed. The rest of the group had preferred the song "Don't Want You Back", which had been leading in votes up to that point.^[2]

A sneak preview of this song was released on the Selections from A Night Out with the Backstreet Boys CD on November 17, 1998 and had a slightly different sound to it; another preview was shown at the end of Britney Spears' album ...Baby One More Time (under the title "I'll Be the One") two months later. This song was also used as the opening song in the shōnen anime Hanada Shōnen-shi.

Track listing

CD 1

1. "The One" (Album Version) – 3:46
2. "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (Soul Solution Mixshow Edit) – 3:40
3. "Larger than Life" (Jack D. Elliot Radio Mix) – 3:50

CD 2

1. "The One" (Album Version) – 3:46
2. "The One" (Instrumental) – 3:46
3. "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (Jason Nevins Crossover Remix) – 3:57

Music video

The music video was directed by Chris Hafner and Kevin Richardson in April 2000.^[3] The video opened with a dedication to the Boys' fans, crew, band, and dancers. The video itself opens with a time-lapse shot of the Bankers Life Fieldhouse (then named Conseco Fieldhouse), home of the Indiana Pacers, being converted from a basketball court to the band's stage for the Into the Millennium Tour, which is reversed at the end of the video. The remainder of the video is made up of clips of performance footage from the tour, and less notably, a number of panned still images and off-stage clips from behind the scenes, or from other promotional appearances done for Millennium. The footage is not specifically related to "The One", though there are a few clips of the band synced to the lyrics. A soundtrack of screaming fans was added to the album version of the song to give a live feeling to the song. Concert footage was from the entire tour as well as a concert in the Bryce Jordan Center, the basketball arena for Penn State University There also appears in the video at segment of the Backstreet Boys playing basketball in Michigan State jerseys. This is because concert footage was also taken from when the band played the Jack Breslin Center.^[4]

Most of the video is in widescreen format, though the within letterboxed black area are pulses of color based on the brightness of the shots. The choruses mainly feature two different clips side-by-side, further letterboxing the video. During the breakdown before the final choruses, the normal letterboxed image is split horizontally into four segments and different clips flash between them with camera flash effects on the borderlines.

Charts

Versions

• "The One" (Album Version) – 3:46
• "The One" (Instrumental) – 3:46
• "The One" (Jack D. Elliot Radio Mix) – 3:35
• "The One" (Pablo Flores Miami Mixshow Edit) – 6:29
• "The One" (Pablo Flores Miami Club Mix) – 10:07

References