'NSYNC

Even if the sugar-spun balladeering of wildly successful late-'90s guy group the Backstreet Boys wasn't your thing, by the time you saw the first video for 'N Sync, you knew their crooning, Armani-suited elders were set for some Tiger Beat whup-ass. For one thing, the Syncs proved they could laugh at themselves (which, granted, didn't take much). The upstarts had also heard and liked hip-hop, which ultimately counted for plenty. Former New Mickey Mouse Club kids Justin Timberlake and J.C. Chasez brought their Space Mountain child-slave work ethic and above-average pipes to the service of Max Martin–penned machine music, infusing it with spiking-hormonal clean-teen sex appeal. Early songs and videos from their eponymous debut, product-tested by their label in Germany, remained safely Europop, but once stateside success was a lock, the tracks funked up with first ersatz and finally legit shimmy. Our five feisty, muscle-shirted lads threw themselves into athletic, just-this-side-of–MC Hammer–style pop-'n'-lock choreography. And with their image dialed to street-level sporty, they eventually succeeded in making the champagne- and rose-bearing Backstreets look like pedophile math teachers.

Their 1998 eponymous U.S. debut utilized some of the production whizzes from the Backstreet camp. "Tearin' Up My Heart" and "I Want You Back" bear the smooth Swedish melodies that powered early hits by Britney Spears. But the rest of the record is filled with schmaltz such as the adult contemporary "I Drive Myself Crazy" and the acoustic guitar plucks and water-drip beats of the New South love song "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You." That year's Home for Christmas is a reliable set for fans -- if you caught their a capella Bee Gees tribute at the 2003 Grammy Awards, you have some idea of the adequately tight harmonic skills employed.

If they were nipping at Backstreet heels in 1998, things had changed by 2000, when the band dropped No Strings Attached, their "Look, Ma, no manager!" declaration of independence. The video for "It's Gonna Be Me" ushered in a newly self-conscious phase, with our tykes insisting they were no longer just puppets, they were self-conscious, rebellious puppets! The songs on No Strings are consistently stronger than the drivel on the debut. On the jet-revving "Bye Bye Bye," Timberlake revealed a snotty persona that suited Wayne Isham's train-top-hopping action video. By the time Eminem blasted one chatty Sync-er for off-the-cuff moralizing, "Chris Kirkpatrick you can get your ass kicked" (Kirkpatrick was reportedly psyched about the name check), fame had become onerous for the fab five, or at least that was their chosen coming-of-age narrative. Celebrity takes a dark view of said condition, but that pique serves the songs well. Timberlake got songwriting credit for the best ones, claiming the Jackson mantle with the BT-produced "Pop." His lyrics challenged radio listeners to strike the guilt from guilty pleasure, though the song is more confrontational than pleasurable. "Girlfriend" (produced by the Neptunes) is another confident R&B track, as is the Rodney Jerkins–helmed "Celebrity." (LAURA SINAGRA)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide