"The Call" is a song by American boy bandBackstreet Boys. It was released on February 6, 2001 as the second single from their album Black & Blue.
Composition
The song is based on common time, the tempo is 104 BPM and is played in the key of B-flat minor. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Universal Music Publishing Group, their vocal range spans from the low note F4 to the high note of Ab5. The song's bass sound is the sound of Howie'sflatulence while recording the vocals, which producer Max Martin then turned into his signature bass sound. In 2017, Howie D. said of the incident: "I got in the booth, was breathing in really heavily singing my part, and I guess some extra air kind of came out. It made everybody laugh, and Max decided to take that and sample it to turn it into the 'dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun.'"
Music video
Background
The music video for "The Call" was directed by Francis Lawrence. For the video version of the song was edited to extend the length of the song. Additional telephone rings were added at the start, and one measure was added to both the break following the second chorus, and the subsequent a cappella choral segment. A third repeat of the final chorus was also added. There were two cuts of the video released. One featured the modified version, and the second featured the Neptunes Remix. The two versions were substantially the same, however the differing arrangements of the two song versions resulted in the video being slightly re-edited to match. The Neptunes video also adds flashes of early in the video as callbacks near the end of the video; there is also an unreleased remix video using the Thunderpuss Club Mix and the Thunderdub of the song. Band member AJ McLean later admitted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in an episode discussing his recovery from depression and drug and alcohol abuse, that he tried cocaine for the first time on the set of this video. The music video won at the MTV Asia Awards in 2002 for Favorite Video. The song also received two nominations at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.
Synopsis
Complementing the lyrics to the song, the video tells the story a man who is unfaithful to his girlfriend. He meets another lady in a nightclub and leaves the club with her instead of going home to his girlfriend. The cheating man is portrayed progressively by each of the five members of the Backstreet Boys.
