"It's very piano driven," McLean told Access at the Playstation 3 party Wednesday in Los Angeles. "It's very guitar driven. Lyrically, it's great. Melodies are back. Harmonies are back."

Some former boy-banders, such as Justin Timberlake with help from super producer Timbaland, have opted for a dancier sound of late. The Backstreet Boys won't follow suit.

"It's not so dancey in that sense," McLean said. "We're still gonna dance, we're still gonna be on stage, we're still gonna perform, but it's just really great music. It's always been about the music for us. That's the bottom line."

While working on the new Backstreet album, McLean added he has been pulling double duty, writing and recording his own, first ever solo album.

"I can multi-task," he said. "Sort of."

McLean's own effort, the third for a Backstreet Boy (Carter released his in 2002, Littrell in 2006), will be issued at some point next year, following the drop of the BB album. As for what it sounds like, the singer said, a little bit of everything.

"Mine's definitely rockier. Mine's more eclectic. It's got everything that defines me from rock, soul, funk to all live instrumentation," he said. "I'm writing the entire thing along with these producers and it's a lot of personal influence and it's more real. It's not about 'Hey! Nice car, nice ass, nice jewelry,' it's about personal things -- things that piss me off, my relationship with my father, relationships, just things that I wanna get off my chest"

McLean said he plans to do some after-show club gigs while on the next Backstreet tour and hopes to embark on his own solo trek when the foursome finish their own jaunt.

First, what we know for sure: Aaron Carter, 18 at the time of filming, drank to the point of illness. This was the centerpiece of an entire episode of the show about the dysfunctional Carter kin.

We've already seen one of the sisters imbibe to the point of talking nonsense, but while that is truly sad, it wasn't illegal.

Aaron Carter, as a minor, broke laws by getting loaded on, I think, tequila.

What I am now speculating is that the teenie-bopper heart-throb has also taken narcotics during the taping.

With red-rimmed eyes and an itchy nose, the young man went to a business meeting with his older brother and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter -- mind you two hours late. At the meeting, which was about the brothers starting their own record label, Nick made little sense and acted wired.

It may be rude to make such an inference that, say, cocaine or crystal meth was involved. But it's not as though reality producers have sprung into action when their stars broke laws or put themselves in danger.

On The Real World we've seen drunk driving. Breaking Bonaduce is solely about child star Danny Bonaduce's addictions -- whether he is abstaining from them or not -- and the potential collapse of his family.

I don't even know what to say about Being Bobby. I think the show was supposed to chart the R&B singer's comeback, but that didn't seem to happen at all. Most viewers tuned in to see if the producers would actually film Whitney Houston smoking crack or to see how many beers the couple would drink. We know now that the couple is separating and in the midst of a divorce. Brown is facing charges that he has not paid child support for the children he fathered pre-Houston.

Now, The House of Carters. How many times are we going to see the siblings drink to excess, jump off balconies into the pool while loaded or lay down in the grocery store?

Perhaps a moral compass should be a requirement of reality TV school, or perhaps we've just gone too far in our lust for watching the train wreck.

April Helmer is Static Editor for the "Courier-Post.' Reach her at ahelmer@courierpostonline.com.

Though Shar passed through the red carpet without giving interviews, she did tell Access Hollywood inside the event that despite the announcement she "wasn't going to miss the Playstation party."

So what did the stars have to say about the news of Britney's split? Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean, who knows the singer and is also labelmates with her on Jive Records, offered words of encouragement. "My advice to her is to pray about it and to reach out to family and friends and loved ones," he said last night. "Keep your head up. It's not the end of the world and just look at yourself and go, ‘You're no better and you're no worse than anyone else.' She's a trooper. She's a mom. If she can do that and still make a record right now, she can do anything and if she needs any advice or anything, give me a call."

A newcomer to the glare of the camera eye, ‘Idol' runner up Katharine McPhee said she was pleased to see pictures of Britney looking trim and sprightly, skating at Rockefeller yesterday. "I love it. I think it's fabulous. I know she went through [a lot]. We all watched that interview she did with Matt Lauer and how difficult this whole thing has been with paparazzi so I think it's great," Katharine said. "I think she needs to move on and find herself again."

Despite going through his own public split with now ex-wife, former Playmate Nikki Ziering, "90210" star Ian Ziering was at a loss for words about the news. "I have no advice," he shrugged. "Good luck [to her]," he added.

A surprising figure at the event, political satirist Bill Maher, wondered aloud about the attention being focused on the split in the wake of the recent election. "I think that on Election Day, it's hilarious that you ask me that," he smiled, before turning back to face Access Hollywood and adding, "I wish her the best of luck."

Funnyman actor David Arquette, however, had the most impartial advice of the night. "It's crazy because all the Hollywood aside, they're people and it's a relationship and it's always hard," he said. "There's a lot of stuff people have to deal with so I wish them both the best
 

Hill was caught on camera screaming "What?!?" She later said it was just "a joke."

"I thought her statement wasn't really a denial," Griffin observes. "All I heard was, 'Oh, I love Carrie Underwood.' ... It's kind of like the Mel Gibson I'm-really-not-a-Jew-hater interview with Diane Sawyer."

It's the kind of Hollywood gaffe the self- proclaimed queen of D-List celebrities absolutely relishes. Through her stand-up comedy routines (like the one she'll perform Monday night at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts), cable specials and her own reality TV series, the sarcastic comic has made a career of skewering the famous.

Americans, she agrees, make her job easy. We worship pop stars. We believe what they say. We think they're perfect. We think we know them.

"And then I come in," Griffin says.

Griffin finds it curious that more celebrities just can't laugh about their mistakes the same way the rest of us do.

"I'm always shocked when they're on tape doing stuff and they don't just laugh about it or say, 'I was hammered,'" she says. "Like they catch you stumbling out of a club, falling down and it's, 'Oh, she had an ankle problem that day — and here's a doctor to concur.'"

Getting caught on tape is nothing new for Griffin, who's a reality TV junkie. She participated in, and won, "Celebrity Mole," hosted a season of "Average Joe" and has starred in two of her own reality series, "Kathy's So-Called Reality" and the Emmy-nominated "My Life on the D-List."

Why is she so taken with the medium?

"Can I say three words?" she responds. " 'House of Carters.' I love it. It's my favorite. As if I didn't already love the Backstreet Boys enough."

"House of Carters" stars former boy band idol Nick Carter and his dysfunctional siblings — very dysfunctional. Griffin says she loves to see the layers peeled away from sheltered celebs.

"There's something about the commonality of it," she says.

Deb Gallion, marketing director at Hammons Hall, says Griffin has her own way of peeling layers that fans have latched onto.

"It's a pretty fair target, and you have this pretty refreshing point of view coming from her," Gallion says. "Lots of regular people talk about these things, and it's kind of fun to hear somebody like her talk about it."

She's met just about every star she's poked fun of, Griffin says, and most of them get it, but not all. She says Whitney Houston wagged a finger in her face.

"When I run into them they say, 'You can't have that in your act,' or 'You can't say this in your act,' " she says. "And you know what? It doesn't work that way. If you don't want to be in the act, don't puke on my shoes."

Griffin stresses that her stand-up routine is R-rated.

"My show will have a lot of swearing and negativity," she says. "It's not for children. It's not a family show."

Stand-up remains the heart of Griffin's career. But she's always up for other opportunities — in television, movies or hosting award shows such as the Billboard Music Awards, which she has done for the past three years.

"When you're on the D-List, you've always got some gig going on," she says.

What, Griffin hasn't graduated to the C-List by this point?

"Oh, no," she says. "Not as long as people still think I'm Kathie Lee Gifford, which they still do."

Still?

"Oh, about twice a week."


Kathy Griffin on ...

- Britney Spears announcing her divorce on Election Day: "That's why you pay your publicist the big bucks. That was smart, because obviously people are talking about it, but not as much as they would have."

- Faith Hill denying she acted like a diva at the CMA Awards, even though it was caught on camera: "These celebrities have to realize that when you're busted, you're busted."

- Clay Aiken liking her act, though she pokes fun at the easy-listening crooner: "He's not appalled. He's not threatening me. He gets it."

- Nick Carter, former boy band idol who now has a reality TV show with his dysfunctional family: "(He) had millions of dollars, and now he has his raving siblings throwing shoes at his head all day. Interesting."