NSYNC

NSYNC was formed in 1995 in Orlando, Florida, by Chris Kirkpatrick, with financing from Lou Pearlman—the man who had built the teen boy-band phenomenon itself. The group consisted of Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone, and Lance Bass—five singers with chemistry, choreography ambitions, and the backing of Pearlman's machinery. They broke first in Germany and other European markets in 1996–1997, building a devoted fanbase before launching their assault on the American market.

Their self-titled US debut album arrived in March 1998 to significant success, but it was No Strings Attached (released March 2000) that cemented their place in pop history. The album's first-week US sales of approximately 2.4 million copies set a record and announced that NSYNC had arrived as commercial titans, matching or exceeding the Backstreet Boys' dominance. The album featured the inescapable single 'Bye Bye Bye,' with its marionette-themed video and instantly recognizable jerky choreography, and 'It's Gonna Be Me.' A third album, Celebrity, arrived in 2001, but by 2002, the group had effectively gone on hiatus, their five-year cultural dominance at an end. The NSYNC-versus-Backstreet-Boys rivalry—two Pearlman-produced acts competing for pop supremacy on MTV and TRL—defined teen pop in the late 90s and early 2000s.