*Nsync's Celebrity comes with some mighty high expectations.
Not the least of which is whether the Florida pop group's new release, in stores Tuesday, will shatter the first week U.S. sales record of 2.4 million set by their last album, 2000's No Strings Attached.
Entertainment Weekly did a cover story last month titled "Pop Goes The Teen Boom?" and just this week the magazine pointed out Backstreet Boys' waning sales of their latest, Black & Blue, before A.J. McLean checked himself into rehab for alcohol abuse and depression.
While hardly admitting the teen pop craze is over, none of NSYNC's five members -- who sat down with The Sun last month before performing at the SkyDome -- thought Celebrity could beat No Strings Attached's sales record.
"Honestly, in my heart, I don't know if it's possible," said JC Chasez, who along with bandmate Justin Timberlake -- among others -- co-produced and co-wrote Celebrity. He was seated at one of several round tables set up in the King Edward Hotel's forgotten 17th-floor ballroom, while his bandmates chatted with other media.
"It's like that record came out, it was fate. It was time and place and everything and it was fate the way the stars lined up for us to sell those kind of records," Chasez said. "And I mean, who knows if that's ever going to happen again?
"All we want to do is have a consistent record. We want to have a good, quality record. And it doesn't have to sell in the first week. We just want it to sell consistently over time, have a decent run again."
Radical plan
One thing NSYNC may or may not have on their side is a radical marketing plan, at least in conventional music industry terms.
The group launched a stadium tour before Celebrity was released, inserting plenty of new songs into the PopOdyssey show that their fans wouldn't know. Their road trip started about a month ago and wraps up in North America at the end of August.
The end result could well be a substantial buzz for the new record. Or not.
"I'm wondering what will happen," said NSYNC's Lance Bass. "I think the 2.4 million was a fluke. I think it's impossible to beat. I just think the lead-up to it last year was just so perfect. I don't think we did anything wrong, it was right after the Grammys.
"This time, we don't have anything to promote it. We're on tour. We don't get to do much TV and all that type of stuff like we did last year. It's the summer, everyone's on vacation, so I don't think it'll even come close."
"That's like the least of our problems," said Chris Kirkpatrick, without question the most outspoken member of NSYNC. "We don't care. The only thing that I think's funny is I know all the critics are waiting -- if we don't sell 2.4 (million) they're going to jump all over it and be like, 'Well, pop music's dead. There it is.'
"And we're like, 'You know what? Pop music is never dead. Pop music changes.' And I think we're changing."
So what does Celebrity sound like?
With the help of co-writers and co-producers who include previous NSYNC collaborators Wade Robson and Max Martin, underground trance-dance man BT, R&B's Rodney Jerkins, The Neptunes and fellow performer Brian McKnight, there are undeniable urban and underground flavours.
But NSYNC don't want their fans to think they've abandoned their trademark five-part harmonies or overall pop sound.
"We just wanted to take it a little bit a step above," says NSYNC's Joey Fatone. "We just wanted to put our feelings into it and express the way that we feel our music should sound. And it's not far from how the other album (No Strings Attached) was. It's not like we're going to all of the sudden go in a completely off direction and do, like, rock."
For Timberlake, the highlight of the Celebrity sessions was working with one of his heroes, Stevie Wonder, who plays harmonica on the ballad Something Like You.
"That was probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me musically," he said. "It's so cool because, I mean, we wrote it with the idea of Stevie Wonder playing harmonica on it because you don't hear harmonica on songs anymore. And you know, who better to do it? And he said, 'Yes.'
"For me to sit there at a sound board and tell him what I wanted him to do, you know, and I'm working with him on something, that was amazing to me."
Meanwhile, Celebrity's first single, Pop, takes aim at some of NSYNC's critics, citing: "I'm tired of all this animosity, Just worry about yours, 'cause I'm a get mine, now people can't you see?"
"It's very tongue-in-cheek," said Timberlake, who co-wrote Pop. "And it's kind of like just a smack back and really kind of says, 'We don't care and these are the things that are important to us and we're having a good time doing what we do.' "
Adds Kirkpatrick: "People hold things against us for our music and for what we do, not for who we are. I'm as rock and roll as they come. The music that I do is pop music. It's transformed from bubblegum, that it was in the beginning, to where we're driving now and we're in control."
Future
So what is NSYNC's future?
With all the doom and gloom about pop music -- it's run its course, teenagers are moving on towards more guitar-based rock, etc. -- Chasez, for one, isn't worried. The group has been down for the count before.
"Everybody's saying, 'Well, you know, they're going to be around for two years and they'll be gone,' " Chasez said. "The second album comes out and it does well -- 'Oh they'll be gone.' And now we're doing a stadium tour.
"I'm not saying that this next record is going to be the hugest record or whatever. But hopefully it'll do well and it'll again show the critics exactly why pop music will stick around."
