Backstreet Boys expose their DNA; AJ McLean says it could be “as big as Millennium”

RCA RecordsThe Backstreet Boys‘ new album DNA is in stores today, and the group’s AJ McLean thinks it’s got the potential to be really big. How big? Oh…about as big as Backstreet’s most successful album, 1999’s Millennium.

Millennium broke first-week sales records, spun off three huge hits and has gone on to sell over 30 million copies. Talking about DNA, AJ tells ABC Radio, “Sonically, from start to finish, I think this can be as big as Millennium. I really do. I mean, song for song on Millennium, even songs that weren’t singles were hit songs. And I feel that passionately about DNA.”

So what makes DNA so great? “I just think number one, the material, which will speak for itself,” AJ says.

“Once we cut ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,’ we just knew, like, ‘O.K., this is what the standard is now,'” he says. “And once we knew that that was the first single, like, everything after that ha[d] to be as good, if not better.”

So far, DNA seems to be off to a good start: “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” earned the group a Grammy nod. Once the Boys wrap up their Las Vegas residency in April, they’ll hit the road to support the album with a new tour.

While AJ says that the DNA tour will “definitely have some similarities” to the Vegas show, he tells ABC Radio, “I can tell you…that the stage is completely different. We have some little treats and twists that we’re throwing in just for the fans.”

One thing he says the group might do, in addition to playing new music from DNA, is “incorporate the biggest hits from every single album we’ve ever done.”

But, he adds, “Who knows?”