Mass hysteria took control of the feeble minded in the late ’90s when forceful, storm-like battalions of young men sat atop the pyramids of pop culture as if gods in their own right.
Temperatures rose as alley creatures set in motion the trends of a generation. The Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees and *NSYNC were the main contributors to the phenomena of boy bands who infectiously tainted our unwilling minds, causing wanted or unwanted murmurs of either defeat or glory.
But who could resist these young-men? One look at *NSYNC’s self-titled album will naturally lend help to this question.
The mature smirk of Joey Fatone, the innocent glare of Lance Bass, the inviting eyes of Justin Timberlake (or JT as he is affectionately called), the rebellious backward glance from JC Chasez, and that one little dreadlock that lays down the face of Chris Kirkpatrick will release the inner answer your soul has begun to search for.
Hits such as “Here We Go,” “I Drive Myself Crazy” and “Tearin’ Up My Heart” are only surface scratches to the hidden gems of “Everything I Own,” “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You” and the ever so clever “You Got It.”
“You Got It” opens up with a very dark synthesizer play as JC lets out “Soon as the stars shine/I’m going to make you mine.” It sounds very Nintendo-like once we start this roller coaster of a sing-a-long. “Walking slowly through the rain/Without worries there’s no pain/When you see a shooting star, all your problems seem so far.” Very poetic words of this stature should be credited to the songwriters of this piece, but they are not mentioned inside of the booklet.
“God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You” is quite a lovely song. “I never thought that love could feel like this/you changed my world with just one kiss.”
The acoustic guitar is plucked gently by Carl Sturken, on violen. The strings are pulled in a grand manner by Elizabeth Chang and Alexander Yudovsky with Maxine Neuman and Daniel Miller on cello.
All strings were arranged by Doug Cuomo on this song, but he is not the only one as others were involved in the arrangement of strings on different songs in this album.
“I Need Love” sounds like a mall-happy, techno version of “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles at times.
*NSYNC later phased into supernova and disbanded entirely. JT is still doing his thing and a Lance Bass sighting was exploited in the hit movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.”
The others are victims of time and history. Watch the flames on the disc and enjoy as it spins.