*NSYNC, from the perspective of someone who never really earned "teenager" status

I know this is unrelated to autism, but I I stumbled across this delightful article on the Rolling Stone website, and I had to talk about it.

You see, growing up, my family was always a little bit behind the curve.  We got our first color TV somewhere around 1995.  We got our first cell phone somewhere around 2003 (just one phone.  For a family of six).  And we didn’t hear pop music until 2000 (but it was only one CD: Backstreet Boys’ Millenium).  We didn’t start listening to anything else new for several more years.  I’m more familiar with the Beatles, the Monkees, Elton John, Three Dog Night, and so on.  So, I was never a part of the *NSYNC phenomenon. Fun fact: when I first heard of the band, I knew basically nothing about music.  So when they told me about this new band, called “in sink,” I had no idea what they were talking about, or why they wanted to be named after stuff in sinks.  It was only later, when I read an article where they asked if they were always “in sync,” did I figure out what the word meant.

This article showed me what I missed.  Before this, I had only ever heard the songs off of No Strings Attached (which we bought a good deal after the band split up).  I had only ever seen the music videos for Bye Bye Bye, It’s Gonna Be Me, and Pop.  This was a fascinating journey, and I’m thrilled to tell you about it.  

In *NSYNC’s first video, I immediately begin to identify the performers: baby face, tall guy with good hair, scary guy, Justin Timberlake, and other good hair guy.  They are all so young.  Woah.  How old were they when this started?  Baby face and tall guy look familiar, and I realized this was because of this movie, which I saw on TV a few years ago.  The visual effects are so… cute.  I realize this must have been really cool and high tech when they made it, but wow.  And then they’ve got those really cool dance moves (which I’m sure they had to rely on because of the low budget.  I noticed in later videos that they did less dancing, more throwing money at extras and special effect people).  But I like their harmony--I’ve always loved a good (number of people) part harmony.  How many people are in that band?  They won’t stop dancing long enough for me to count (after consulting with someone who was conscious during the nineties and the new millenium, the answer is: five.  There are five members.)

In the second video, everyone’s a little blonder, a little more serious about telling us how much they love and miss us (they feel the PAIN)(seriously, how old are these guys?).  More camera angles, more costume changes, and more interesting dance moves.  Baby face is blonder, scary guy looks a little less scary (less gel, I think), tall guy is blonder, too, and JT got a haircut?  Looks like he goes right back to those frosted tips later, though.  I think I’m gonna change other good hair guy to hat guy now, because he’s the only one with something on his head for the whole music video.  As a whole, I’ve definitely seen worse videos, visual-wise.

Video number three: other good hair guy has upgraded his hat, and Justin has gone full-on blonde WHAT ARE YOU DOING, JUSTIN?  Why are you wearing an earring?  They’re showing all these baby pictures, but I could barely tell the difference between your teenage selves.  I have no idea who is who in these pictures.  I do like that tall guy always tries to incorporate almost-signs for his singing (together again?  That’s pretty close, tall guy.  Didn’t you throw up two fingers in the last video for the word “too”?  Good for you, tall guy).  But it sounds like in the first verse, JT is singing off-key.  Is that just me?  Because that is grating.  Sorry, JT.  You gotta pick up your game.

Four.  When I saw the name of the song, I thought they were going to be singing with Britney Spears (U drive me crazy--that’s one of her songs, right?  I’m sure of it), but no, it’s just the the boys. (When I thought of Britney, I thought of this song, but when I think of this song, I think of Kina Grannis, because her version is the definition of amazing. Don't believe me? Look it up. Okay, don't do that. But do listen, it's my favorite.)  

Now, back to *NSYNC. Crazy hat guy is now crazy hair guy.  What.  I’m not sure what he’s trying to accomplish here, but I’m sure he got whatever it is.  And scary guy finally fixed his hair!  He’s not scary anymore!  He kind of looks familiar now, actually…  I wonder where I’ve seen him?  Probably from one of the three *NSYNC videos I know.  I was too distracted by this to register that they were finally telling me everybody’s names.  Oh, well.  Why are they doing paper-mache?  I want to do paper-mache!  Why hasn’t anyone ever used that medium in music videos before?  This is the longest, chillest song intro I’ve ever heard.  Is it like that on the CD?  I think it’s pretty awesome that they dress up as the Jackson Five, since, like the article states, they ripped off one of their songs for their debut.  Superman T-shirt?  They were doing that back then?  Props, man.  PS, Justin pulls off drag pretty well.  Just throwin’ that out there.

Five!  More insanity.  I’m starting to see a theme in what these boys sing about.  I’ve also never seen a music video in an asylum before (I’m starting to think I don’t watch enough music videos).  Crazy hair guy does not fail to disappoint: his hair is even more insane, if that’s possible.  I sincerely hope he continues to change his hair for each music video.  I’m beginning to rely on this.  Justin pulls of crazy pretty well.  I’m starting to see how he’s the talent here.  But scary guy does a pretty good job, too.  I think baby face is the only one who’s really enjoying himself in the asylum.  IS THAT THE GIRL FROM SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH?  Somebody I recognize!  Although that show kind of went downhill, if you ask me.  My favorite part of this whole video is scary guy singing/screaming crazy while he’s in a straightjacket.  I changed my mind: he does better crazy than Justin.  And then, all the sudden, they’re released, and their ex-girlfriends go in their places.  No, no, I get the symbolism.  It’s just kind of the opposite of what they’re saying in the song.

Six.  Crazy hair guy does not disappoint.  Sure, he’s using the same style he did before, but it’s different than the last one, and that’s the point.  I like the uber-modern bubble fountains in the background, to help distinguish between shots of the band and shots of the family in war-times.  Question: are they singing about the mother, or the son?  Because it sounds like they’re singing about their girlfriend, but a love interest for the guy doesn’t show up until later in the video… But it’s very sweet and heart-wrenching and that stuff.  EXTRA PROPS for having a pensive in the music video, years before they talk about that in Harry Potter.  Oh!  More earrings.  

Seven.  Seven!  This is one I’ve seen before!  I even know most of the words to the song!  I like that they have all the puppets and stuff for this video, instead of No Strings Attached.  For the record, I don’t know if there is a video for No Strings Attached, but I’m just saying.  Wait, where’s crazy hair guy?  I can’t find him, I CAN’T FIND HIM!  Everybody’s moving around too fast, and I don’t even know what his face looks like.  What if they switched him out?  I need crazy hair guy!  How could you do this to me?  I think I’m hyperventilating.  It’s okay, Penny, it’s okay, we’ll find him.  We’ll find him!  Or at least I hope we will.  I feel so disillusioned.  Tall guy has red hair, now, though.  That’s kind of cool.  I’m beginning to realize I never really saw this video all the way through.  I mostly just saw the beginning and the end.  The physics-defying blue room is pretty cool, by the way.  I want one now.  Why is Justin grinning at the camera and cackling?  I’m not complaining, just curious.  You know, this makes some decent action-movie footage, but I don’t know where the anti-physics room plays into all of this.  I FINALLY KNOW WHO SCARY GUY REMINDS ME OF.  It all just clicked.  It’s this guy.  If you haven’t seen Sons of Provo, then you haven’t lived.  

You're welcome.

Side note: it just occurred to me that Bye Bye Bye is the first song in the lineup that doesn’t talk about how much they love “you” (as in the girl they are with, or just broke up with, whom they always address as “you”).  Good for you, guys.  Good for you.

Eight.  It’s Gonna Be Me.  This is the first music video of theirs that I had seen all the way through, and I might have even watched it more than once (I can’t remember). More puppet/toy references.  Maybe they did that for all the music videos of this album?  For the record, when they’re not puppets, I actually think they’re doing some really cool stuff: the multi-colored room, and cool dance moves, in their dark and almost-but-not-quite matching outfits, is pretty cool.  Cool.  The toy stuff is fun, though.  With their jerky movements, and plastic hair, they look like toys you might want to bring home.  If you don’t mind sentient toys, watching you while you sleep, that is.  I still can’t find crazy hair guy, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s the new goatee guy.  But everyone’s blurring together, more and more, and it’s hard to say.  Three questions: if the main characters turn into real people when they get scanned, why didn’t anyone else?  And, if they were all “in love” with the girl walking by, why did they go after the Barbie-types?  And, what is toy Justin wearing?  I’m liking tall guy more and more, now that he’s the new-crazy hair guy.  Red works for him, and I can distinguish him from everybody else, now.  One more question: why is that girl buying all of these toys?  It’s probably not for her, maybe a niece or nephew or something (she doesn’t look old enough to have kids, but I’m not a good judge of those things).  Why is she getting G.I.Joes and Barbies?  Is it Christmas?  That’s an awful lot of toys she’s buying there.  Or is the child she’s shopping for really open-minded?  Or does she just like these toys herself?  I don’t understand.

Nine.  Back to music I don’t know, for videos I’ve never seen.  CRAZY HAIR GUY IS BACK!  Oh, how I’ve missed you!  Listen, while you were gone, some guy in a goatee took your place, I think you’re gonna need to have a talk with the other sink boys and get this all sorted out.  So, we’ve got a bunch of teenage girls, hanging out in a bedroom, singing to *NSYNC.  I know this actually happens, because I went to a sleepover once.  We sang to Avril Lavigne (who I’d never heard before, but everyone knew all the words.  It’s a cold, cold night, because we’re good church girls and don’t say bad words) and Dream Street (believe it or not, I actually knew one of their songs.  I was really surprised that I had something in common with them. Down on dreeaam streeet.), which they had to choreograph a dance number to.  Now, since I know that this is a regular occurrence for teenage girls, and that they will, most likely, be doing exactly this while they’re listening to the song, why would they want to be watching other girls, doing the same thing?  They could just pull out the family camcorder for that.  I was, however, glad to see some of the “other stuff” that the boys did: I got to see them backstage, doing whatever stuff it is boy bands to backstage.  I got to see them smile for the camera, and do crazy tricks at their concerts (it all looks very exciting).  So I filled in another empty spot of my teenagehood.  Thanks for that, guys.

Ten.  This song actually sounds a little familiar.  I’m not sure, though, it could be just like some other song I know.  I like the redwood forest: I’m sure your fans don’t get enough of the wonders of nature, but hopefully after this, some of them left their bedrooms and got a good look at the world.  I don’t mean it cynically.  I’ve seen music videos in the forest plenty of times, but redwoods?  That’s taking it up a notch.  I spent much of the video, trying to figure out which member of the band was in which bubble-memory-thing, before realizing that they weren’t in any of them.  They’re singing about other people’s relationships.  That’s pretty cool, I guess.  I don’t see that all that often.  I would like to know what is up with the turtlenecks, though.  Goatee guy is back.  I’m 90% sure that he really is crazy hair guy.  But we’ll never know for sure, now, will we?  I would also like to know why the guy previously known as scary is wearing those distracting pants.

Eleven.  I’VE SEEN THIS ONE BEFORE.  This was from back in the days, when I watch Yahoo! Launch 24/7.  Through them, I was introduced to KT Tunstall and Taylor Swift, among others.  Those were good times, having a bunch of random songs thrown at me, with little or no control or prompting from me.  This was long before I was introduced to Pandora.  This song blew my mind.  It was a pop song, singing about pop.  They were describing what pop does to you, while they were doing it.  Everything they talked about, was something that I’d felt personally that very first time I heard Larger Than Life and I Want It That Way, fiddling around with a CD player my family had borrowed specifically for that purpose back in 2000 (and every time since).  I loved this song, so much.  I played it, over and over again.  I hadn’t really seen Justin Timberlake before, so I didn’t know how his hairstyle was a deviation from what he’d had before.  I just knew he was awesome, and I had to listen to it another three thousand times.  The guy previously known as scary has horrible hair, though.  Wow.  Also, it’s interesting looking at it now.  I will say this now, and probably repeatedly later: I was born naturally blind to anything sexual.  With practice and study, now I can identify references 85% of the time, but back when I was obsessed with this song, I had NO IDEA that them, gyrating with scantily-clad females, or pelvic thrusting towards the floor meant anything at all.  Now, watching all those women, pawing at various members of the band, I’m kind of horrified.  I will say this though: their dance break, where their clothes are changing all over the place, is kind of trippy.  I don’t know if it’s supposed to symbolise anything, but I like it.  Everything is just so FLASHY and IN YOUR FACE.  Like pop is, I guess.  Also, Justin beatboxing.

Twelve.  The beginning part, with the silent movie thing going on, is super cute.  But they don’t bring it up again for the rest of the video (until the very end).  Be consistent, INSINK.  The chorus of this one sounds familiar, so I probably heard it, too.  But I don’t know if I heard it on Yahoo! Launch, too, or what.  Most of the video consists of them sitting around (everything’s black and white), singing sadly.  You know, I’m 90% sure I saw part of this one once.  I must have seen it on Launch.  I find it interesting that they’ve started separating Justin from the rest here (they’ve done it a little before, especially in the fact that they always have him front and center for everything).  Looking back, I forgot that Pop was an *NSYNC song, not just Justin.  It’s not surprising.  It’s turned from The Boyband to Justin and Those Guys.  It’s no wonder he wandered off and got a solo career.

Thirteen: the last one ever.  Back into the realm of unknown.  I had never heard/seen this one before, which is not surprising, since I only listened to Launch for a couple of months, so I probably missed it.  There’s more gyrating and getting in girls’ faces, and stuff.  There’s a bunch of hanging out, tug of war, a car race, and then a dance party.  It bugs me how they’re jumping up and down on those car roofs.  Yes, I know, they’re old, so they’re sturdier than modern cars.  But I see the metal bending, and I just cringe.  I could barely focus on anything else in the video but that.  And their weird hats.  But mostly that.  Like, in one of their earlier videos, they’re dancing on a platform suspended over a pool: I see it bending and shaking with ever stomp and jump.  I wonder if it ever broke for someone?  I’d like to see that.  I’m sure they could turn it into a whole new music video.  Better that, than banging up some perfectly good classic cars.

Well, that was an interesting journey.  I feel like I’ve “caught up” with the rest of the world, in terms of pop culture.  What’s that, you say?  Boyz II Men?  What’s that?  Seriously, though, are they really that well known?  I heard the name only once before today, and I have no idea what they sing.

Penny