... but *NSYNC is very much alive, thanks for asking
By Stephen Lynch
Say bye bye bye to 'N Sync.
Officials at Jive Records confirmed this week that
there is no band on its
label by that name.
"It's now a star, then n-s-y-n-c, all in capital
letters, no space between
the 'n' and the 's,'" said an assistant to Sonya
Mackel, the group's
publicist. "If you don't have a star, an asterisk
will do fine."
In other words, 'N Sync is now *NSYNC.
Of course, the only places you'll actually see the
new *NSYNC logo is on the
cover of their album "No Strings Attached" -- which
just broke the record for
opening-week sales, moving 2.4 million copies -- and
on the cover of the
April issue of Teen Magazine.
"We had a really, really advance copy of the album,
and we saw it was printed
like that," says Audrey Fine, editor of Teen
Magazine's Web site. "We called
them up and asked, and they told us this is the new
style."
Fine notes, triumphantly, that Teen People, Tiger
Beat and other tween mags
got it wrong in recent issues. Mackel's assistant
isn't sure why.
"We've been telling everybody," he says. "But no one
is paying attention."
Teen Magazine says Jive officials told them the logo
was switched because,
"everyone was getting it wrong they wanted to make
it standard," Fine says.
Maybe. Except most publications were running 'N Sync
the same way for more
than a year. More likely the name change is yet
another way for the group to
declare a fresh start.
'N Sync, or *NSYNC, or whatever, spent most of the
end of 1999 in court,
claiming that Louis J. Pearlman, the svengali behind
them and competitors the
Backstreet Boys, failed to deliver their share of
the profits. Then 'N Sync
jumped to Jive Records (which also distributes the
Backstreet Boys and
Britney Spears), and their former home, BMG, filed a
lawsuit.
Legal troubles delayed 'N Sync's second album from
its original release date,
but a judge ruled in December that the group could
keep its name and work
with Jive. The title "No Strings Attached" is a
pointed statement to their
new freedom, as, it seems, is the moniker change.
For the meantime, though, *NSYNC isn't making a
stink if you print it 'N Sync.
