Chris will be co- hosting Sweetstock, a musical festival on August 28th, 2021. It will be held at TOM HANAFAN RIVER’S EDGE PARK in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It will feature artists Shaggy, TLC, 98 Degrees, Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray), O-Town, C&C Music Factory, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and The ReUnion of Souls. The event will be co-hosted by former MTV VJ Brian McFayden.
Tag: Chris Kirkpatrick
Chris on the Frick and Frack Show
DVR alert – My Life on MTV
Justin will be featured on an episode of “My Life on MTV” on MTV airing July 3rd. His episode will be shared with Jennifer Lopez.
*NSYNC will be featured on the same show, airing July 17th. They will share an episode with Britney.
“My Life on MTV” will feature clips of performances and appearances of artists on MTV. Check local listings for times.
New Soundfly Course on Boybands
Hi *NSYNC fans! We wanted to share some cool new *NSYNC related content with all of you.
Soundfly, an online music education hub that creates unique and highly-effective online music courses in a variety of subjects has created one about our favorite subject — boybands. It is called The Music of Boybands. It explores this pseudo-genre of music from analytical and practical angles and empowers aspiring songwriters, producers, and ultimate fans alike, with some of the foundational tools for creating songs in this hodge podge of pop-oriented styles. The course includes heavy breakdowns of *NSYNC hits as well as songs by other artists throughout the era of boy bands, including Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, BTS, the Jonas Brothers, and more. The course is also a celebration of the hybrid experience of taking music seriously and embracing the overwhelming fun in it.
I will be taking this course next week and give you all my full review, but in the mean time I wanted to share the course trailer and some exclusive content!
Check it out and let me know your thoughts! I look forward to hearing if you take part in this awesome course.
When Richard Marx Met *NSYNC
As they were the aforementioned biggest band in the country, I jumped at the chance to work with them, and it was one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve ever had in my career. All five of the guys were gracious, focused, and kind.
But one thing that was immediately obvious was the incredible talent in Justin. It was clear even then that he was going to be a megastar the likes of which we rarely see. He had a fire in his belly that would not be tamed. He was constantly working on song ideas, arrangement ideas, vocal parts. It was really inspiring to even me, who’d been in the business fifteen years at that point and worked with all levels of talented and creative people. Everyone around him knew he was something special.
Making records is a blast for me, but for some it can be tedious work. There would be chunks of time while I was recording with one of the guys in the group and the other four guys would have that time to kill. Video games were already huge, and the lounge in the studio outside the control room had been outfitted with a big-screen TV and a video game console, where the guys would play against each other during their recording breaks. Not Justin, though. Instead of playing, any time he wasn’t needed to record something, he would ask me, “How long ’til you need me again?”
The Ad Where Nothing Happens
Have you checked out Lance, Joey and Chris in “The Ad Where Nothing Happens” with Flo from Progressive?
The Best, Worst, and Most Questionable of *NSYNC, According to Lance and Chris
Twenty years ago this month, *NSYNC released their history-making second album No Strings Attached. On its cover Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, and Lance Bass appeared as five puppets on strings, but at the time, the group was at the peak of its cultural control. They shifted 2.4 million copies of the album in its first week of sales alone (a record only since topped by Adele, 15 years later) and surpassed any other album released in the year 2000. It heralded their split from their disgraced former manager Lou Pearlman, and with its forward-thinking mix of funk, R&B, and electronic-pop, secured their standing as one of the biggest boybands to ever exist. Frontloaded with their signature hit “Bye Bye Bye” and the meme-inspiring “It’s Gonna Be Me,” the fivesome created memorable videos, choreography, and outfits to match the bombast of the songs. To celebrate the milestone anniversary, Lance Bass and Chris Kirkpatrick reminisced with Vulture about their halcyon days making dirty pop, picking the best and worst and most and least of *NSYNC.
Best *NSYNC Song
Lance Bass: My favorite has always been “It Makes Me Ill.” Kandi Burruss wrote it and I freaking love her. [Ed. note: Ariana Grande last year interpolated the song on “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”; Bass, Kirkpatrick, Chasez, and Fatone joined her onstage at Coachella 2019]. I knew the Ariana sample was happening because we have to approve them. We just had no idea what it was gonna sound like. It was so sexy. The fact she used a sample from my favorite song makes me love her even more!
Chris Kirkpatrick: “It’s Gonna Be Me.” Once we got to perform the song and rehearse choreography it was so much fun to do. The music video was all crazy puppetry. Nine hours of makeup. It was a 24-hour shoot and we didn’t sleep. It’s funny that “it’s gonna be May” caught on so much because when Justin was doing it, the producer was like, ‘Yeah I need you to say it more like mayyyy, like a meaner “me.”
Worst *NSYNC Song
Lance: Ah there’s so many contenders! When you first start out as a new band, especially when you’re teenagers, you don’t know what your sound is yet. We were an acapella group so the only sound we knew we loved was Boyz II Men or Az Yet. We were just playing around with different styles and songs we thought would be cool. We played around with a little techno in the late ’90s and it was never good. There was a song called “I Need Love” [“I need love, you need love, we all need love”]. We performed it on our first tour and I never felt right singing it. I don’t even think it made it to the first American album.
Chris: There’s a song called “Riddle” that’s absolutely horrible. It was on the European album — this big European dance song. We did it for the record label, not for us. It didn’t sit well with us. It had no harmonies. Nah.
Best Choreography
Lance: One of my favorites to perform was “Bye Bye Bye.” Any time a song has an iconic dance move in it like that it’s a beast. To this day, several times a day I hear someone walk by me and go “Bye Bye Bye” and do the hand motion! When I joined the group I was not a dancer. The other guys were incredible dancers. I was from a show-tune world and we were all about spirit fingers. So it was a lot of work for me. You had to adapt quickly; there was no other option.
Chris: My favorite routines were for awards shows. For the 2000 MTV Awards we had TV screens for “Bye Bye Bye.” That was really fun. There were a couple of other songs we did during it like “Just Got Paid” with this whole cartoon-y theme. I loved the award show dance routines because when we’d done “Bye Bye Bye,” “It’s Gonna Be Me,” and “Girlfriend” so many times [with the same choreography] it wasn’t fun with muscle memory.
Hardest Choreography
Lance: There were a lot of dances that tested my patience and made me frustrated. One of my favorite choreographers was Marty [Kudelka]. He did “Girlfriend” and the last tour, and he had this different style that we hadn’t been doing. It was way more groovy and so much more smooth. It was the hardest for me to pick up even though it seemed like the simplest. And we were supposed to be perfectly in sync.
Chris: We had a routine where we had these canes, and we had a little ring connected to a fishing line and we had to throw the canes a couple times and they’d come back and we’d catch them. We had another one where we worked with staffs for the opening of one of our tours. We came out like Blue Man Group — these neon-looking people with these neon staffs. And there was a part where we all tossed the staffs to each other. If someone dropped the staff or you didn’t get a good throw to somebody else or you just lost your staff it would screw up the whole thing.
Best Dancer
Lance: I love how JC moves. He’s such an incredible dancer and he can pick it up in two seconds. Joey’s great at picking up things. That’s how Joey got in *NSYNC!”
Chris: JC started working on back handsprings. Justin was a great dancer. Joey’s got moves that are really good, and Lance did cool stuff. It would be a toss-up between Justin and JC.
Best Video Shoot
Lance: It’s hard to pick one that was the most fun. Most of them were very boring. Some I definitely wanna forget! I loved doing the “It’s Gonna Be Me” shoot but we spent way too many hours in makeup. It was a big day for me because it was the first day someone asked me if I was gay. Chris Kirkpatrick sat me down and said, “Hey dude are you gay?” No one had ever asked me that. I was super in the closet and way too young to even know or care what was happening. But I remember getting so freaked out on that set because he caught me so off guard. I’m sure at that point people were wondering — so why don’t you have a girlfriend? It was very blunt. It scared me. I said, “No, what are you talking about?” I wasn’t even telling myself. I definitely wasn’t gonna tell Chris.
Worst Video Shoot
Lance: The video for “Pop” was the hardest by far. We had not slept in days, we were rehearsing for a tour starting in three days, Joey was injured, we were filming this thing that was supposed to be 24 hours but now it’s 30 hours, 48… We were also shooting for MTV’s Making the Video so we had to be on the whole time. It got to us. We all voiced our concerns at that point about being overworked. We had just gone through that crazy Lou Pearlman situation [ Ed note: In 1999, the group sued Pearlman for unpaid royalities] and we were looking at everything in a different light. We weren’t kids saying “yes, we’ll do everything you ask.” We wanted to start looking out for ourselves and our health. I haven’t seen the “Pop” video in years. The one I see the most is “Bye Bye By”e because any bar you go into that’s playing. If a DJ sees me in a bar then they immediately play an *NSYNC song.
Chris: I had a tantrum at the “Pop” shoot. I was just really tired and over it, and they were like, “Alright Justin here’s a part where you’re gonna dance with these girls over here, Joey you’re gonna sit with all these girls over here, and JC you’re gonna be in the club with these girls over here, and Lance you’re gonna be in this club with these girls over here, and Chris get back up and stand at the turntable.” That sucked. I wanted to dance with girls.
Best Outfit
Chris: For tour we were really hands on with everything. We did this song “The Game Is Over” and we had these cool costumes that they’d put glowsticks in, and we were all on treadmills, and I had motorcycle gloves on. I thought it was really cool. Looking back I go, what the heck were we wearing? The amount of FUBU jerseys that we wore? No wonder we were friends with those guys. Every color imaginable.
Worst Outfit
Lance: We had horrible fashion, especially at the beginning because we couldn’t afford anything. One of our first outfits were these oversized beekeeper outfits that were all white. We went go-kart riding and they gave us free go-kart helmets. So we would open our show like Storm Troopers and do this crazy Star Wars thing made up of clothes we got from the go-kart place. When we opened up for Janet Jackson on the Velvet Rope tour those outfits were pretty special. Some of them are hanging up in Hard Rock — these crushed velvet Asian inspired Kimono outfits. Each of us had our own color. I was green. We all had our own favorite colors. JC was always blue. Joey was always red. Justin always had to be baby blue.
Best Hair
Lance: We stood out with our hair. The best era for all of us was probably really No Strings Attached. I liked Joey with the bright red, Chris had short hair, JC was back short, and Justin had the famous curls.
Worst Hair
Lance: When I joined the group I came straight from Mississippi. I did not know a thing about getting a haircut. I had the typical bowl cut with long shaggy hair, kinda gross. So they gave me this combover and also dyed my hair. They tried getting it blond but it was just orange. So the first two months I just had this greasy orange combover hair. Later I got the frosted tips. You know once I discovered frosted tips I never went back!
Chris: Are you really asking me about hair moments right now? Honestly the best and worst moments in *NSYNC hair were mine; I got both ends covered. I started out with the braids and it became a thing and then I got over it. I thought it was different. Something that nobody else was doing. I did it. It made me stand out. But sometimes … that’s not always a good thing.
Proudest Moment
Lance: Being with all the guys after the night we won all those 2000 VMAs for “Pop.” Michael Jackson performed with us, we won every award we were up for, and it was such a real moment. Every artist dreams of being that top artist. To do that was so overwhelming, knowing how hard it took us to get there. It was a beautiful moment.
Chris: The success. Not really an award as much as taking something that the five of us believed in and working really hard for it. No matter how tired we got we were all there to pick each other up. I put this band together. We were all friends. We’re brothers. We fight like brothers and we love each other like brothers. It’s crazy after all this time that we’re still all so close. We still have grudges against each other. There’s a few things that some of us get angry at each other for, but that’s what brothers do.
‘It’s *NSYNC’s World, We Just Live in It’: An Oral History of ‘No Strings Attached’ Selling a Historic 2.4 Million First-Week Copies in 2000
‘It’s *NSYNC’s World, We Just Live in It’: An Oral History of ‘No Strings Attached’ Selling a Historic 2.4 Million First-Week Copies in 2000
Following our Billboard staff-picked list of the 100 greatest songs of 2000, we’re writing this week about some of the stories and trends that defined the year for us. Here, we flash back to late March of that year, when one of the biggest groups in pop music released their much-anticipated sophomore album — and set a record-breaking mark for runaway success that stood for 15 years to come.
Twenty years ago, pop heartthrobs *NSYNC set an industry standard with their sophomore album, No Strings Attached. The LP sold a whopping 2.4 million copies in its first week in March 2000, doubling the record their boy band contemporaries the Backstreet Boys had set the year before with their own blockbuster sophomore effort, Millennium.
For *NSYNC, the timing of their second full-length release couldn’t have seemed more perfect: Big pop acts were beginning to take over the music industry, with the prior few years seeing the rise of boy bands, as well as teenage darlings Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. CD sales were at an all-time high, as artists of all genres (Dixie Chicks, Kid Rock, Santana) were reaching diamond status around the turn of the century; meanwhile, MTV’s Total Request Live was at its peak, giving those young stars a platform to connect with fans (and promote the hell out of whatever project was coming next).
But while the scene was set for *NSYNC, the new millennium marked a period of uncertainty for the group, as they were coming off of a highly publicized legal battle with their initial label, Trans Continental/RCA Records, and now-disgraced mogul Lou Pearlman. The fivesome — Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and Justin Timberlake — sued Pearlman for defrauding, nearly losing their group name (and $150 million) before a judge ruled in their favor in November 1999. The decision allowed *NSYNC to sign with Jive Records, an independent label that was home to Spears and, ironically, the Backstreet Boys.
*NSYNC’s ‘No Strings Attached’ 20th-Anniversary Merch Line Will Transport You to Y2K: Exclusive
The year 2000 was overwhelmingly riddled with classic pop albums, and the one that many pop purists find themselves revisiting is *NSYNC‘s No Strings Attached.
In celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary, the iconic boy band has once again partnered with Epic Rights for a merch collection that will bring longtime fans right back to the turn of the millennium.
The collection (which follows the band’s Dirty Pop-Up Shop in Los Angeles in 2018) is filled with various clothing and household items that feature designs from the No Strings Attached album, as well as nods to song titles.
“To celebrate this 20th anniversary, we worked in close collaboration with the band to ensure authenticity that reflects this incredible legacy,” Epic Rights exclusively tells Billboard. “Our focus was to bring out small details from the album that fans may have forgotten about, while also sharing a new point of view that pays homage to the early 2000’s.”
Highlights from the collection include: a limited-edition reissue of the original record on picture disc vinyl ($25), a “Just Shake It” snow globe pencil holder ($15), a pink-and-white tie-dye tour shirt ($35), a “Bye Bye Bye” hoodie (55), a 20th-anniversary pin set ($30), a pair of “Say I’m Trippin'” bright purple socks emblazoned with a clown design lifted from the original album art ($20) and a No Strings Attached Personalized RIAA Certification Plaque where fans can have their name engraved ($280).
Those eager to purchase can do so when the collection officially launches Saturday at 10 a.m. ET on *NSYNC’s official website. The merch will begin shipping April 20, while the vinyl reissue is set for July 17.
Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment
*NSYNC’s No Strings Attached — released on March 21, 2000 — debuted atop the Billboard 200, selling a million copies in the first day. The album later made pop music history, selling a then-record-setting 2.4 million copies in its first week — a record that was broken 15 years later with Adele’s 25 in 2015. It birthed four singles: “Bye Bye Bye,” “This I Promise You,” “I’ll Never Stop” and “It’s Gonna Be Me,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks.
While a reunion isn’t in the future, the members have been sharing memories from the album era. During his Ellen appearance on March 11, Justin Timberlake revealed he and Joey Fatone “accidentally broke into Alcatraz one time” while shooting the “This I Promise You” video.
Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment
On an episode of Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast in January, Fatone didn’t quite rule out the idea of a reunion down the road. “It’s not a no, but it’s not a yes, because the thing is, we may come up with an idea that may not work for all of us,” he explained. “If I did do something like this, I think it’s just something that definitely we will wanna do maybe more music, but also have fun, do you know what I mean? … There’s not a lot of pressure anymore.”
Click here for more information on the new merch collection, and look out for Billboard‘s anniversary coverage throughout the week of March 23.
*NSYNC to be interviewed on the Daily Popcast
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