When producing music designed for the sole purpose of topping the charts, it’s of no surprise that a great majority of the band’s early material is very much of-the-era. Intended to enshrine their achievements writ large, The Essential actually does the exact opposite, proving just how utterly sappy, limited, and ultimately dated their output turned out to be. While Timberlake has since released a string of successful solo albums, JC Chasez released a surprisingly-underrated disc solo disc in 2004, and somehow Joey Fatone’s comedy album never came into existence, The Essential NSYNC is designed to be the definitive statement on the band’s legacy, grabbing all the big tracks while also collecting the collaborations and one-offs that pepper their discography, thereby making it the one-stop shop for those curious as to that group that Timberlake was in prior to him being a famous solo star. Now, a decade since the genre’s apex, the Backstreet Boys still record and tour to their remaining believers, while NSYNC, despite having reunited as part of a recent Justin Timberlake tribute at the MTV Video Music Awards, were given Sony Legacy’s traditional double-disc Essential treatment, even as the band members noted how not even they were informed of the record’s existence. Even with diehard fans of these two groups still in existence, the tradition of hiring young men to sing songs to young girls with disposable incomes will never truly run out of style, because even removed from the genre’s oversaturation at the start of the millennium, it’s a formula that will always be profitable. The Backstreet Boys wound up selling over twice as many albums worldwide, but Justin Timberlake proved to be the only one to really break out of the teen pop era aside from Britney Spears, becoming a small entertainment empire unto himself (not to mention a really shitty business investor). They both consisted of five members, they both shared the same record label, producers, and even the same creepy manager in the form of Lou Pearlman. Yet unlike great pop rivalries like the Beatles/Rolling Stones or Blur/Oasis, very little actually distinguished the two great boy bands. Lance Bass, after discovering The Essential NSYNC existed the day before its release date, on TwitterĪsk anyone who was a teenager in the ’90s, and the question was simple: are you a Backstreet Boys fan or NSYNC (or, perhaps, maybe *NSYNC)? Oh sure, you might have pined for the hits of 5ive, O-Town, 98 Degrees, or maybe even LFO - the latter of whom was responsible for the biggest accidental comedy song of all time - but, really, at the end of the day, the battle of the boy bands came down to BSB or “Justin Timberlake & Friends”. I love when the record label doesn’t even tell you they are releasing a new ‘NSYNC album tomorrow ! #The圜are
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