You know, funny, even back in the day when boybands still played their own instruments and a really hip dance routine was, at most, John and Paul bopping their bowl-cut heads in unison, you still had this shit. I think it's about tribalism. The human animal isn't really designed to live the way we do today. At any given time, most people will have a certain number of people (family, friends, vague acquaintances) in their lives. That number hovers around thirty. Which, coincidence, is about the size of your average stone-age tribe. We're not built to live in cities. We're not built to handle meeting so many people each and every day of our lives. So we find ways around it, ways to still get that tribal vibe in our lives, ways to feel connected and safe, ways to feel important, to feel like we're individuals within a larger framework. We join churches. We convince ourselves that our God is substantially different than the God worshipped in the next church over. We support sports teams. We vote for a certain party or candidate. We wear certain kinds of clothes that naturally align us with other, like-minded people. Maybe, and this is a no-brainer, we join a gang. And we listen to music. Oh, do we listen to music.
You know how it works. You meet someone for the first time. You're feeling each other out. You're filling out applications to become members of each other's tribe, essentially. Everything's going swimmingly. Suddenly, this person mentions a deep love of Metallica. "Yeah, that Lars Ulrich is really cool, man. I dig his work."
And if you're me, you know that you might as well give up right now. For you, it might be Madonna, or Limp Bizkit, or Dr. Dre, or, hey, NSYNC. Although if it's NSYNC, I don't know what you're doing reading this, but whatever.
NSYNC tribe members and BSB tribe members are very much alike. There's not much difference between those groups of guys, is there? Be honest. No, there's not. Which, of course, means their tribal supporters have to do fierce battle to emphasize the few differences there are, so that they're able to maintain their façade of individuality within the system.
Someone recently asked me if I liked BSB and 98 Degrees. I don't. I started to wonder why. Well, for starters, 98 is boring as hell. God, they're boring. Also, that whole wandering around w/out shirts thing is not terribly clever. Jeff is hot. Oh, yes, he is. Midget feet and all, he's hot. But he's also boring as fuck. 98 Degrees does not meet my entertainment needs.
The Backstreet Boys are not as boring as 98 Degrees. They have AJ, who's a Grade A nutjob, and Nick, who's a petulant little bitch, so there's lots of potential for amusement there, but for some reason, they're not quite interesting enough. I think it may be the lack of dance routines in their videos. Or perhaps, more simply, it's the fact that they take themselves even more seriously than NSYNC does.
I'm not sure. I just know that I'm not very interested in them. If I could put my finger on why not, I'd be a marketing genius making a gazillion dollars in sales, and I'm not. So don't expect much from me here.
I do, however, recognize that there's very little difference. The niche they fill is practically the same. It fucking overlaps, it's so close. According to me, BSB is more ballady. NSYNC is more dance-y. That's my opinion. I have the feeling that the Boys love their ballads, and that NSYNC puts theirs on their albums because ballads and teens make a great combination that will plump up their Swiss bank accounts. But I don't know. They're very, very close.
So it amuses me to no end when people claim to be able to spot vast differences between them. Please! Let's break it down:
| Topic | BSB | NSYNC |
| Plays intruments: | No | No |
| Writes own songs: | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Big in Japan: | Yes | Yes |
| Made it in Germany first: | Yes | Yes |
| Were Pearlman's Special Boys: | Yes | Yes |
| Ballads: | Lots | Not too many, thank God |
| Dance routines in videos: | Sometimes | Hell, yeah |
| Has "Young, Hot" component: | Yes, Nick The Bitch | Yes, Justin "J-Dawg" Timber-Timberlake |
| Has "Crazy Guy" component: | Yes, AJ. | Yes, Chris. |
| Has "Obviously Gay" component: | Yes, Howie. | Yes, Lance. |
| Played Superbowl 2001: | Yes, Anthem. | Yes, halftime. |
| Huge, stage-managed concerts: | Yes | Yes |
| Sells shit to teenies with sex: | Yes | Yes |
| Good white trash boys: | Extremely so. | Moderately so. |
| Lots of pelvic thrusts: | Yes | Um. Yeah. |
| Hates being called boyband: | Not really. | Yes. |
| Has songs that are about stuff: | Not really. | Well… does DG count? |
| Most songs are about love: | Yes | Yes |
| TRL staple: | Yes | Yes |
| Most fans young and female: | Yes | Yes |
| Has gay fans: | Yes | Yes |
| Has adult, straight, male fans: | 4 guys in Nepalese village. | 3 guys in Paris, one in Gstaad |
| Fans write shit on faces: | Yes | Yes |
| Has Dans: | No. | Yes. |
| Mockable: | Probably. | Very much so. |
| Real Music fans hate them: | Yes | Yes |
Well… sorry. I'm not seeing the vast gap here, people. The best I can do is reiterate, BSB is ballad-y, NSYNC is dance-y. Feel free to ask me why I don't like Backstreet. But the best answer you'll get is: "I dunno, man."
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