For the first time in a decade, *NSYNC reunited at last week’s MTV Video Music Awards. Fans of the heartthrob sensation hoped they’d announce a new album or reunion tour when JC, Joey, Chris, Lance, and Justin presented the award for Best Pop Video to Taylor Swift. Instead, they announced a new song called “Best Place” debuting on September 29.
*NSYNC’s latest reunion symbolizes a nostalgic appeal to a multigenerational audience, says Maria Sherman, music journalist at the Associated Press and author of “Larger Than Life: A History of Boy Bands from NKOTB to BTS.”
“You're seeing younger acts freak out over these groups because they grew up with them. But even teenagers and people in their early 20s have a familiarity with this music because it's the stuff that their parents played for them,” Sherman says. “*NSYNC coming back now, and especially recording this new song for the forthcoming ‘Trolls’ movie, which is a family film, it's just very clever and appealing to a broad demographic of people.”
What attracts audiences to this particular genre is its tendency to be saccharine and sweet, she explains. With it, however, comes embarrassment over the stigma of being a fangirl. That hasn’t stopped the proliferation of boy bands worldwide, such as BTS.
Sherman points out, however, that there is no one formula to what a boy band looks like. “Not every decade of boy band looks exactly the same, right? The *NSYNC/Backstreet Boys era has a very distinct feel and appearance. One Direction is very different from that. They weren't even dancing; they were more rock-oriented.”
She adds, “Each generation gets their own boy band formula, their own boyband appeal. And I think for young people now, K-pop is what speaks to them. … If we're talking about choreography and performance of these maximalist pop songs, K-pop is just dominating. The songs are just bigger and brighter.”
Sometimes, a shining star steps away from the boy band — think Justin Timberlake and Harry Styles — but the group still lives on.
“There's always a sort of ‘it-factor,’ and what's interesting about that trajectory is they often eclipse the success of the boy band that created them,” Sherman says. “They're just finding their own career paths and, hopefully, with a schedule less exhaustive than the boy band one. … Boy bands tend to burn bright and fast because they just work endlessly for five to seven years and then they call it quits, but the legacy remains.”