Style marker
Harmonic minor
In the '90s, harmonic-minor-based chord progressions suddenly increased in popularity. Musicologist Walter Everett names Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder among the forebears of this sound, which would become identified with Max Martin and The Backstreet Boys.
There is [...] a tradition of pure [i.e., "harmonic"] minor modality, blues aside, in the R&B music of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson; this is the heritage of the Backstreet Boys.
— Walter Everett, "Pitch Down the Middle", from Expression in Pop-Rock Music (2008), p. 172
