Will the band
be able to look
in the mirror
and not cringe?
By David Segal
THE WASHINGTON POST
July 25 — In a decade, when the five members of ‘N Sync look back on their platinum years, what moment will embarrass them the most? There are plenty of possibilities. It could be the opening sequence of last year’s “No Strings Attached” tour, which found our heroes dangling from wires attached to the top of the stage, dressed as hobos and dancing like marionettes. It could be Justin Timberlake’s brief flirtation with cornrows, or Joey Fatone’s magenta dye job.
CERTAINLY “SPACE COWBOY (Yippie-Yi-Yay),” a daffy Wild West romp on last year’s “No Strings Attached,” is a contender.
There’s a chance, though, that “Pop,” the first single from the band’s new album, “Celebrity,” will take top honors. It’s not just the self-pitying lyrics, though ranting against detractors — “Tired of feeling all around me, animosity” — will surely seem inane when these guys are 35 and working the state fair circuit, wondering: What were we complaining about?
No, what makes this song a gold mine of future shame is its manic eagerness to plunder from anything and anyone. In less than four minutes, there’s turntable scratching, the trademark purring of electronica drumbeats and plenty of Michael Jackson-style vocals from the “Bad” era. Also, in the song’s coda, Timberlake gurgles and grunts like a human beat box, a sound that was novel when the Fat Boys popularized it in the mid-’80s.
Okay, nobody buys a teen-pop record hoping for originality. ‘N Sync Inc. has become one of music’s greatest cash flow machines by swallowing every hip-hop and R&B trend of recent years and spitting it back out in gobs so sweet and creamy that it can clog arteries. “Celebrity,” the band’s thrombotic fourth album, alters little in this high-cholesterol approach. As with its gazillion-selling predecessor, “No Strings Attached,” the songs on this album burrow into your cerebral cortex in mere nanoseconds, one sure sign that you don’t want them there.
CELEBRITY BURDEN
There’s an early feint on “Celebrity” in the direction of “edge,” which ‘N Sync seems to think is largely a matter of sounding peeved. On the title track, the lads are in high dudgeon about their own fame, which, they’d like you to know, is more burdensome than it sounds. “If I wasn’t a celebrity, would you be so nice to me?” Justin wonders. On “The Game Is Over,” a two-timing girl is cornered in her own lies, while the beat to a sample from the video game Pac-Man pulses in the background.
By Song 4, though, “Girlfriend” arrives and ‘N Sync has chucked the disenchanted act. Once again, the boys have become the funky gentlemen who know how to dance and mind their manners. “If you were my girlfriend, I’d be your shining star, the one who shows you where you are.” This is the essence of ‘N Sync’s appeal: an Eagle Scout’s sense of restraint and duty, coupled with a groovy haircut and an early line on the latest dance steps. It’s fitting that four of the songs on this album were co-written by the band’s choreographer, Wade Robson.
As always, ‘N Sync has hired some of the best production talent that money can buy. Several veterans of the teen-pop game are present and accounted for here, including Max Martin, the Swedish studio wiz who has worked with the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, and who, for “Celebrity,” wrote and produced the steroid-pumped “Tell Me, Tell Me . . . Baby,” a number distinguished only by a fake false start. “Hold on, you know what, can we back it up just a little bit?” we hear an ‘N Syncer say near the outset, as though we’re earwitnessing a spontaneous flub. There are no musicians credited on this or several other “Celebrity” songs — they seemingly were constructed entirely on a hard drive — so interaction between band and singers seems out of the question.
SCRUTINIZING THE SIGNS
More interesting results come from offbeat production choices, like the Neptunes, the Virginia Beach duo behind such thoroughly raunchy raps as Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin.’ ” The Neptunes worked the boards and co-wrote “Girlfriend,” though aside from its opening — a gentle cascade of synthesized keyboard chords — there’s nothing Neptunish about it.
Ratcheting down to PG from NC-17, or maybe writing a song with Timberlake, kills the rawness that gives the team’s other work such tension.
Given the staggering performance of ‘N Sync’s last album, sales figures for “Celebrity” will be scrutinized for signs of momentum loss in the teen-pop craze. The band, at least, is doubling down on the style that made it one of only two acts, along with the Dave Matthews Band, popular enough to play stadiums this summer. If nothing else, “Celebrity” makes ‘N Sync’s game plan clear: Instead of maturing with an audience, it will steadily cater to the same age range, roughly 11 to 17, and let listeners graduate to other groups as they get older.
In the meantime, it’ll subsume all the mannerisms and tropes of electronica and hip-hop, even referring to a girlfriend as a “shorty” and money as “cheese.” For the band, it’s a play-it-safe strategy — unless it’s worried about feeling silly a few years down the road.
