Decent Albums of the 90s: 98° - 98° and Rising

Welcome to part ___ of my series of decent albums from the 1990s.

This post will pretty much cover my trilogy of boy bands in the 90s.  i consider the big three (actually it is really big two) to be NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and 98°.   Incidentally, if you have a PC, the degree symbol is mapped to ALT + 0176 (on the numeric keyboard).  That is why i sometimes refer to them as 98 ALT 0176 - yes, i have some nerd-dom (surprise?).  Anyways, back to the topic... before Nick Lachey became a TV host (the underrated The Sing-Off) and his brother Drew won Dancing With the Stars - they were part of a 5 part boy band.

98° were probably the most talented, but least successful of the big three.   The first time i heard this album i thought it was awesome.  It has since lost some of its luster.  i liked the songs on the album (and the album), but my evil girlfriend at the time did not.  So, i wasn't supposed to sing along to songs i like, but she didn't.  For some reason, 98° seems to be a little more fun to sing along to than a lot of other bands of that era (maybe because i was vocally closer to them).  Their follow-up album Revelation was decent too, but more pop-ish.  Nick Lachey probably has the second best voice among those in boy bands (JC Chasez is first).  Nick Lachey had a decent solo debut album too, Soul-O.


Notable Singles:
* "The Hardest Thing"
* "I Do (Cherish You) - it's still kind of hard for me to hear this song & the Mark Wills version
* "Because of You"

Lesser Known Singles:
* "True to Your Heart"

Other Songs on the Album i Kind of Like
* "If She Only Knew"
* "Fly With Me"
* "Still"
* "To Me You're Everything"
* "She's Out of My Life"

The Rest of the Album:
* "Intro"
* "Heat it Up"
* "Give It Up" - interlude
* "Do You Wanna Dance"