Backstreet signs $60 million deal

If the Backstreet Boys seemed unusually chipper during their recent Canadian tour stops, there was a good reason.

In what the Hollywood Reporter is describing as one of the richest record deals ever, the Boys have signed a new deal with their label, Jive Records, that's believed to be worth up to a whopping $60 million.

The five-album pact includes a hefty advance for the follow-up to their current album, "Millennium," which is due for release in September 2000.

The Hollywood Reporter also said the deal puts the 40 million-selling Backstreet Boys in the same lofty company as the Rolling Stones, Prince and Michael Jackson, giving them extensive artistic freedom and a royalty rate of 20 percent, among the highest in the recording industry.

Both band and label will work together on licensing and marketing deals, and the group is finalizing plans for a long-term sponsorship deal, the Hollywood Reporter said. The new deal ends weeks of tension between the two sides, with the Backstreet Boys most recently threatening to leave the label.

The group's Canadian label, Zomba/Jive, declined to comment on the new deal.