Boy band *NSYNC trying to evolve beyond teen pop

USA Today

When *NSYNC's new CD, "Celebrity," arrives in stores today, the country's pre-eminent boy band will face a formidable competitor. And if the guys want to confront this nemesis face to face, they need only stare in the mirror.

After all, it was *NSYNC's previous album, "No Strings Attached," released in March 2000, that set the impossible commercial standard against which "Celebrity" will inevitably be judged. After intense anticipation and an exhaustive promotional campaign, "Strings" sold more than a million copies on its first day of release, and set a new SoundScan record for first-week sales: 2.41 million copies, more than twice the amount that previous champs — and rival teen-pop group — the Backstreet Boys sold the first week their 1999 album "Millennium" was available.

But that was 16 months ago — an eternity in the mercilessly fickle world of pop music. Having formed in the mid-'90s and released two hugely successful albums, *NSYNC — whose eldest member, Chris Kirkpatrick, is now pushing 30 — has already survived and thrived longer than many had expected it would.

"There's definitely pressure on us now," Kirkpatrick says. "But it all comes from critics and the media. You know, we could sell 15 million copies of our new album, which is more than our last one sold, and it would still be considered a failure if we sell only, say, 1.5 million copies the first week — because we won't have broken our own record."

In fact, despite the 11-times-platinum status of "Strings," some industry insiders and observers have already begun sounding the death knell for the genre and generation of music that *NSYNC represents. Five years after the Backstreet Boys' first album launched the latest bubblegum-pop conquest of radio and MTV, a number of teen-'zine-friendly acts are having a more difficult time either cultivating a mass audience or following up promising debuts. A CD released by 98 Degrees was one of last year's biggest commercial disappointments; in recent weeks, heavily promoted albums by the rising young group LFO and Mandy Moore, a blonde baby diva who has been likened to Britney Spears, entered the Billboard chart at No. 87 and No. 35, respectively.

"I think we're in a phase right now where there's no question that the bloom is off the teen-pop rose," says Alan Light, editor in chief of Spin. "Superstars like *NSYNC and Backstreet and Britney and Christina (Aguilera) can still sell records, but they'll face a challenge even if their sales start to dip a little — if there's any sense that they've peaked."

Backstreet member Howie Dorough acknowledges that he has begun to sense "a little backlash" since the release of his group's most recent CD, "Black & Blue." "In the past year, I'd say, radio has become too saturated with this pop sound — especially the Max Martin sound," he says, referring to the Swedish songwriter responsible for numerous bouncy, ear-candy hits for top teen acts, including Spears and *NSYNC. "We originated that sound, and then all the record companies wanted to mass-produce it. Now we've found that radio stations don't want too much of that sound anymore."

Indeed, many have speculated that *NSYNC's relative staying power can be attributed in part to the group's use of different musical styles, many of them drawn from modern R&B, hip-hop and dance music. While Backstreet's latest single, "More Than That," is a midtempo ballad that has fared best on adult-contemporary radio formats, *NSYNC's new album — for which the band members did much of the writing — embraces even more of the urban-influenced rhythms and textures that informed "Strings."

Artistic growing pains

"It seems like where you go from teen pop is either into adult-contemporary ballads or into more explicit hip-hop territory," says Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield. "The Backstreet Boys took the first route and *NSYNC took the second — and the second was the smarter one to take." Sheffield describes *NSYNC's first single from "Celebrity," "Pop" — which was certified the most-added song to pop radio in early June — as "Fisher-Price hip-hop. But *NSYNC is doing a lot right now to expose preteen suburban girls to hip-hop, much as New Kids on the Block exposed that audience to hip-hop 10 or 11 years ago. That's the niche they've created for themselves."

Kirkpatrick, predictably, feels that *NSYNC's latest effort shows more sophistication and daring than Sheffield suggests. "One of the biggest compliments I've gotten from people who have heard our new album is that at first they say things like, 'They've blown it — this is the end of their career. They've changed their style too much.' But later, the same people say, 'I'd like to learn how to do tracks like that.' "

Adds Kirkpatrick bandmate Justin Timberlake: "We're trying to grow as artists, and that can be hard to do when there's so much speculation about you. When this album comes out, critics could say, 'What were they thinking, trying to write their own music?' But we want to do that now, and to learn how to produce and master records. These are things we've wanted to do all along."

Airplay Monitor editor Sean Ross says there are "some program directors who don't think that *NSYNC's new record will have the same legs as 'Bye Bye Bye,"' the first single from "Strings." "Some people probably wish the group sounded more like it used to. But the cycle of pop music is such that what worked a couple of years ago isn't necessarily going to work in 2001, regardless of genre. And *NSYNC clearly tried to address that by not coming back with 'Bye Bye Bye, Part II.' They made a record that sounds more like the times."

Dave McKay, program director of top 40 station WPST in Trenton, N.J., shares with Ross, Sheffield, Light and most other insiders the belief that *NSYNC is "definitely the most popular boy band now. If any act is going to be hurt a bit less by a trend away from that kind of pop, it's going to be them."

But McKay questions to what extent that trend exists. "Part of me thinks things are slowing down for these artists, but another part thinks the industry is saying they ought to slow down, and we're making them slow down. We all start talking about it in trade (publications) and at conventions, that this cycle has to end, and we're the ones who can make it happen."

Wishful media thinking

Sheffield muses, "The decline of teen pop has been predicted for so long, and it's mostly wishful thinking on the part of the media."

TransContinental Entertainment president and CEO Lou Pearlman, the boy-band guru who oversaw the rise of Backstreet, *NSYNC and LFO — and is now working with rising group O-Town — says that the reign of teen idols in pop music will only end "when God stops making little girls." But Pearlman adds that "music styles will change, and if you don't change with the flow, you'll end up with a limited time line. You can be a teen band for no more than five years on average — after that, it's all about music and longevity."

Jon Zellner, operations manager for Kansas City top 40 station KMXV and adult-contemporary station KSRC, agrees. "With their last album, *NSYNC reinvented themselves and made themselves cool again to a teen audience," Zellner allows. "But making the transition from a teen star to someone who can bridge the generation gap between moms and their kids is a whole different thing. I can't think of one teen group, other than the Beatles, that has done that."

But the members of *NSYNC, who cite the Beatles as big influence — along with former teen star Michael Jackson — refuse to believe that the odds are against their cultivating a diverse audience.

"We see our audience evolving, but we don't want to leave anyone behind," Kirkpatrick says. "We won't say, 'We're done being a kids' act now,' so that we can get more respect. Our music is high-energy and fun, and little kids pick up on that. And older kids can say, 'You know what? The music's still great. I'm not into the whole teenybopper thing anymore — I won't buy T-shirts with ... (*NSYNC) on it — but I still love their music.' "