May 23, 2001

*NSYNC : Pop

*NSYNC prepare to return with one of the greatest pop comebacks ever, ever seen...

The war's over. We could have spotted it coming a mile off - when last year's
Backstreet
album failed to reclaim from *NSYNC[/url] their record for first-week album sales, Justin and co stuck out as
winners by default. But from massive vinyl scratches to an axe solo of proportions not
seen since Slash quit Axl's wedding for that moment
of cliff-top 'November Rain' lunacy, 'Pop'
could very easily blow the Backstreet
Boys[/url], and every single other pop act, into oblivion.

As the rest of the world flail around in the wake of 'No Strings
Attached', desperately scrabbling around for someone to recreate the rapidly
dating sound of now-defunct Swedish pop laboratory Cheiron, this lot have
branched out with the list of producers working on 'Celebrity'
including Rodney Jerkins, Brian McKnight, the Neptunes
and BT.

Still unmistakably the work of *NSYNC[/url], 'Pop' hits back at the obsession with what *N
Sync[/url] are rather than who *NSYNC[/url] are and, more acutely, the music *NSYNC[/url] actually make. Not many bands could get away with singing "all
that matters is you recognise it's just about respect / It doesn't matter about
the clothes I wear and where I go and why", but the music surrounding those
lyrics on 'Pop' is all the justification that's needed.

And while they also sing "why do you wanna classify the kind of things we
do?", this single throws down just that gauntlet. But it's almost
impossible to pigeon-hole: not quite hip hop, not quite pop, certainly not the odd UK
garage direction they've mentioned in interviews. Maybe it's just dirty pop.
Actually, that's a good phrase. Perhaps they should use it.

From PopMart to Poptones, everyone from rock grandads
U2 to the man who discovered Toaster toy with their
interpretations of what pop is and should be, but *NSYNC[/url] know their stuff inside out. If 'Celebrity'
follows the template of this single, it stands to be the most sophisticated pop album ever
made.

Peter Robinson