On July 9, the day after the Backstreet Boys announced on MTV that their tattooed bad-boy member A.J. McLean was entering a rehabilitation facility for "alcohol and depression," advertisements appeared in the Japanese dailies announcing the Boys' Japan dome tour in November. Tickets, however, would not go on sale until Sept. 9, which was exactly two months away. In deference to group solidarity, the Boys canceled the dates on their summer tour until McLean finished his monthlong hiatus, but in early August they had to expand the cancellations when McLean's doctor suggested an extra two weeks of treatment. The Japan promoter's caution was obviously justified.

There was very little shock or dismay in the press about McLean's rehab announcement. Sobering up seems to be a rite of passage for stars these days. (Ben Affleck's admission of booze addiction isn't nearly as embarrassing as were reports of his parading around the set of "Pearl Harbor" in a T-shirt that read "Remember the box office!") The Boys said that they were now more determined to continue as a group forever. This is the kind of emotional hyperbole that raises eyebrows. By stating that they would always be around, the Boys simply magnified the lingering belief that they were on the way out.

For almost a year now, music insiders have been predicting a huge fall-off in the popularity of so-called bubble-gum R&B ('N Sync calls it "dirty pop," thus illustrating the old saw that one man's ceiling is another man's floor). The Backstreet Boys' last album, "Black and Blue," was a flop, but only if you compare it to past albums' sales. The concert tour that was interrupted when McLean went into rehab was playing to less than packed houses, but bear in mind those houses were stadiums. In any case, industry figures show that they sold more tickets in the first six months of 2001 than any other concert act. 'N Sync's new album, "Celebrity," has broken the record (held by the group's previous album) for first-week sales, but, again, industry insiders say the proof is in the long run.