1995–1997: Formation and debut logo In 1994, while working at Universal Studios and singing in the Hollywood Hi-Tones, Chris Kirkpatrick was introduced to
Lou Pearlman, who had created the
Backstreet Boys, through a mutual friend who had heard that Pearlman was interested in financing another vocal group. Originally, when the Backstreet Boys formed, Kirkpatrick had not known about their auditions, so he never got the chance to try out. When Pearlman met him and saw him perform in his doo-wop group, Pearlman took an interest in him, so they discussed the idea of Kirkpatrick forming a vocal group, which Pearlman promised to finance if Kirkpatrick could find other singers to join him. Kirkpatrick took the opportunity and spent over a year trying to find other people to join him, eventually finding
Justin Timberlake (who had been on the TV show
The All New Mickey Mouse Club along with
JC Chasez) through a talent agent and contacting him in regards to the group. After the end of
The All New Mickey Mouse Club,
JC Chasez attempted to pursue a solo music career in
Los Angeles, but decided to return home to
Maryland after he was left feeling cheated. Chasez and Timberlake eventually relocated to
Nashville while continuously writing songs and demo tracks with Robin Wiley, a songwriter and vocal coach on
The All New Mickey Mouse Club. After several weeks of rehearsals, the group set up a showcase and began planning to officially sign with Pearlman's Trans Continental Label. However, at the last minute, Galasso dropped out. He was not fond of the group's musical direction, claiming that being a
teen idol was never a goal of his. To help him in deciding between joining the R&B project Unreal and the pop project NSYNC, Galasso had his lawyer compare the two contracts presented by the groups, concluding that Unreal's was industry standard, while Pearlman's NSYNC contract was far too large and overly complicated. Galasso joined Unreal instead, but that project never gained traction. Still in need of a bass, Timberlake eventually called his vocal coach, who suggested a 16-year-old from
Mississippi named
Lance Bass. Bass flew to Orlando to audition and was immediately accepted into the group. He was nicknamed "Lansten" so they could keep the name 'NSYNC. With a record deal finally secured, the boys began touring first in German-speaking countries and later in other European and Asian territories. The group became an overnight success throughout much of Europe. The album also charted successfully in both Switzerland and Austria eventually selling 820,000 units in Germany, Switzerland and Austria (GSA), and Eastern Europe. The group released its second and third singles, "
Tearin' Up My Heart" and "
Here We Go", both of which managed to reach the top 10 in numerous countries in Europe. Next, they released two Germany-only singles, "
For the Girl Who Has Everything" and "
Together Again".
1998–1999: Breaking the American market and legal battle against Pearlman NSYNC captured the attention of
Vincent DeGiorgio, an A&R rep for
RCA Records. After seeing the group perform in Budapest, he eventually signed them to RCA in 1998. The American label had the group record some new tracks to adjust their album for the US market. The group released its debut American single, "
I Want You Back" on December 29, 1997. It reached number 13 on the
Billboard Hot 100. An album called ''
'N Sync followed on March 24, 1998. Album sales were sluggish, debuting at number 82 on the Billboard'' 200, but were helped when the
Disney Channel aired a
concert special on July 18, 1998. Five weeks before the concert, the album sat at number 82 on the albums chart; three weeks after the concert, the album reached number 9. The group's profile continued to rise with the subsequent single release "
Tearin' Up My Heart", which became a hit on pop radio and one of the "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s" according to
VH1. Regular touring, including an opening spot on
Janet Jackson's
The Velvet Rope Tour, and television spots on shows like
Sabrina the Teenage Witch also bolstered sales for the album, which was eventually certified diamond for shipments in excess of 10 million units. On November 10, 1998, the group released a holiday album,
Home for Christmas. The album peaked at number 7 and sold two million copies. NSYNC also recorded their version of the song "Trashin' The Camp" with
Phil Collins. The song appears on the soundtrack to the Disney movie
Tarzan. They also did "Somewhere, Someday" which appears on the soundtrack to
Pokémon: The First Movie. In September 1999, the group collaborated with
Gloria Estefan on a song for the soundtrack for her movie
Music of the Heart. The track "
Music of My Heart" reached number 2 on the Hot 100 and served as a stopgap between album releases. In 1999, NSYNC entered a publicized legal battle with Lou Pearlman, due to what the group believed were illicit business practices on his part. NSYNC sued Pearlman and his record company, Trans Continental, for
defrauding the group of more than fifty percent of their earnings, rather than his promise of only receiving one-sixth of the profits, similar to his promise of one-sixth of the profits with the Backstreet Boys. Trans Continental, along with RCA's parent BMG Entertainment, went to federal court and filed said $150 million suit in an effort to stop NSYNC's move to Jive, to prevent the band from performing or recording under the name NSYNC, and to force NSYNC to return masters recorded that year in preparation of their second album (originally scheduled for release that fall by RCA, the album was then moved to early 2000). The suit also claims Jive executives induced the group into breaking its Trans Continental contract. Pearlman's request for a preliminary injunction against the band was denied. freeing the group to release future albums on Jive Records. Also in 1999, NSYNC starred in a short-form
spoof video of the 1998 science fiction disaster film
Armageddon for the 1999
MTV Movie & TV Awards; it was titled ''Armagedd'NSync''. It featured an earthbound asterisk-shaped asteroid (a play off the asterisk they usually had in their name at the time) and featured
Clint Howard,
Lisa Kudrow, and all five members of NSYNC.
2000–2001: No Strings Attached and groundbreaking success With their legal woes behind them, NSYNC refocused and worked on tracks for its second album. In January 2000, the group released "
Bye Bye Bye", an upbeat dance track, which shot into the Top 10 of the Hot 100 and spent five weeks atop the
Hot 100 Airplay chart. The song is often considered the group's
signature song. The accompanying album,
No Strings Attached, was released on March 21, 2000. It sold a record 2.42 million in its first week of release. By the end of 2000, it had sold over 9.9 million copies.
No Strings Attached was the best-selling album of 2000, and the second-best selling album of the decade in the US behind
the Beatles'
1. As of August 2012,
No Strings Attached was the eighth best selling album of the
SoundScan era, and received a
Diamond certification from RIAA for sales of over 11,099,000. The album was all-time bestselling pre-ordered album on Amazon.com. The second single, "
It's Gonna Be Me", became the group's first number 1 single in the U.S. and remained at the top position on the
Billboard Hot 100 from July 29 to August 11, 2000. The third and final single, "
This I Promise You" reached the top five on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart. They performed the Spanish version of the song, "Yo Te Voy a Amar", at the
Latin Grammys in 2001. The group also embarked on their
No Strings Attached Tour that year. The adventures of preparing for the tour were featured on an MTV special "Making the Tour", which was later released on DVD. The tour was then featured on a HBO special, which aired the same week the group's song "It's Gonna Be Me" hit number 1 on the charts. The group then went on the second leg of the tour in the fall and performed one last show in 2001 for the "
Rock in Rio" concert. The group also released
Live From Madison Square Garden, a home video release of its HBO Special. NSYNC and
Aerosmith co-headlined the
Super Bowl XXXV halftime show, titled "The Kings of Rock and Pop", with appearances from Britney Spears,
Mary J. Blige and
Nelly. NSYNC was among the artists that performed at the
2002 Winter Olympics ceremonies.
2001–2007: Celebrity, hiatus, Timberlake's exit and breakup announcement The group's fourth album,
Celebrity, released on July 24, 2001, produced three singles: "
Pop" (number 19 in the US), "
Gone" (number 11) and "
Girlfriend" (number 5). The album featured much more creative involvement from the group, who wrote and produced several of their own tracks.
Celebrity sold 1,879,955 copies in its first week, making it the second-fastest-selling album in
SoundScan history at the time, only behind the group's previous album
No Strings Attached. Its debut was recognized by the
Billboard Music Awards with a special award for "biggest one-week sales for an album in 2001." In 2002, the band promoted their album further by embarking on the
Celebrity Tour, which earned nearly $30 million. Following the tour, the group went on an indefinite hiatus to allow for time off and at the suggestion of Timberlake, who was interested in recording a solo album. While the hiatus was initially meant to be temporary, the group never toured together again. "It started as a fun snowball fight that was becoming an avalanche. And, also, I was growing out of it. I felt like I cared more about the music than some of the other people in the group. And I felt like I had other music I wanted to make and that I needed to follow my heart," Timberlake later said of his decision to leave the band. Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, and Chris Kirkpatrick have offered a different perspective on NSYNC's split, indicating that a lack of transparency left them unprepared for the prospect of a breakup. In a 2019 interview on
The Jenny McCarthy Show, Fatone said the group believed they would be reuniting because they were young and "didn't know better at first." Lance Bass has addressed the breakup on multiple occasions over the years, beginning with comments made shortly after Timberlake’s departure and continuing in his memoir and later interviews. In September 2004, Bass told Fox News columnist Roger Friedman that new music from NSYNC "all depends on whether Justin wants to do it, and he doesn't." Several years later, while promoting his memoir, Bass told the
Orlando Sentinel that the group was "definitely broken up" rather than on hiatus, adding that Timberlake "made it clear that he wouldn't be interested in discussing another album any time soon." Bass later reflected on the entire period following the group's 2002 hiatus in his memoir, where he described passing up various professional opportunities while waiting for the group to reunite, and again in a 2020s interview on Michael Rosenbaum's
Inside of You podcast. In that interview, Bass explained, "Me and the guys were never...on bad terms at all, you know, it's just life goes on and y-you know you have more interests; you have to focus on your career and it's great. Uh, the thing I was most disappointed in was not just Justin leaving the band, um... it's that our whole team - our record label, our management, everything like that - they
all knew. They all
knew it was over for three years before they told
me. And so for three years I'm sitting there getting ready for a new album as everyone else knows we're moving on. And so, I didn't get - I turned down, you know, there was a sitcom I was doin'. Had to turn it down. Uh, I mean, all kinds of stuff that I really wanted to do and focus on but I knew I couldn't because, you know, my first commitment is *NSYNC. Like, this is my
life." In the Paramount+ documentary
Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands, Chris Kirkpatrick described the hiatus period as "hard," recalling "a lot of animosity," "anger," and "resentment," and said he wondered whether the group would ever reunite, according to
Entertainment Weekly. Lance Bass echoed similar reflections in the same documentary, stating that the record label told the group to "come back in six months" to begin work on their next album, but that "it just never happened" and the group ultimately "never got back together." They were slated to begin work on a new album in the fall of 2003, but it never materialized. According to Bass' 2007 memoir
Out of Sync, written after Bass won the Human Rights Campaign Award for his work in the gay community after his coming out, a meeting was held in the summer of 2004 to discuss the band's future where Timberlake announced his decision to leave the band. In 2005, NSYNC regrouped for the last Challenge for the Children but did not perform. In the fall of 2005, NSYNC released a
greatest hits album. It included one song, "
I'll Never Stop", that had previously not been released in the US. In 2007, while promoting
Out of Sync, Bass confirmed the group's breakup to the press.
2010–present: Occasional appearances, Walk of Fame, "Better Place" and second hiatus In January 2010, the band released another album,
The Collection, consisting of singles released only in the UK. On August 25, 2013, the members of NSYNC regrouped for a one-off performance at the
2013 MTV Video Music Awards. They performed a medley of "
Girlfriend" and "
Bye Bye Bye" during Timberlake's 15-minute set leading up to his acceptance of the
Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Their introduction included vocal elements of "Gone" in the background. After the performance, Bass said that the group did not have any plans at the moment for a reunion tour or new music. On July 29, 2014, a compilation of NSYNC's hits and unreleased songs titled
The Essential *NSYNC, was released. Bass said of the album on his radio show,
Dirty Pop: "There's a lot of these songs I don't think I've ever heard, I remember recording them but I've never heard them before, so I'm interested in just hearing them." Chasez tweeted about the album's release, stating: "I had the strangest dream last night that some old friends and I had a top 10 record on iTunes. Crazy right..." Kirkpatrick said of the album; "It's great to release some of the songs that had never made a record before. I'm glad our long time fans get some new music." Fatone also said; "Pretty interesting this album comes out, which I really had no idea, and it's in the top of
Amazon and
iTunes... we owe it to our fans. Thank you." Fatone and Kirkpatrick starred in
Dead 7, a western zombie film written by Backstreet Boys member
Nick Carter. The film premiered on April 1, 2016, on the
Syfy channel. On April 30, 2018, NSYNC reunited to receive a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. To celebrate the occasion, all five members appeared on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. On April 14, 2019, Chasez, Fatone, Bass, and Kirkpatrick reunited, for a performance with
Ariana Grande during her headlining performance at
Coachella. They performed "
Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored", "It Makes Me Ill" and "
Tearin' Up My Heart". Timberlake was unable to make the reunion due to finishing up his
The Man of the Woods Tour the night before. On April 19, 2021, Bass, Fatone, and Kirkpatrick reunited for a Progressive Insurance commercial known as "The 3/5ths of NSYNC". On September 12, 2023, following weeks of teasers and speculation regarding a potential reunion, all five members appeared together at the
2023 MTV Video Music Awards to present the Best Pop Award. On September 14, it was confirmed the group recorded a new song titled "
Better Place" for the
DreamWorks Animation film
Trolls Band Together. The song was released on September 29, 2023, reaching No. 1 on the US and Canadian iTunes Charts, No. 4 on the Global and European iTunes Charts and No. 25 on the
Billboard Hot 100. To further promote the single, the band appeared together on a 2023 episode of the
YouTube talk show
Hot Ones. In the wake of the release of "Better Place", Joey Fatone said that, depending on the success of new music from the band and the continued involvement of Timberlake, they could record a new album together within the next two years. On March 13, 2024, NSYNC performed together for the first time since the
2013 MTV Video Music Awards at Timberlake's One Night Only (ONO) concert at
The Wiltern in Los Angeles. They performed "Girlfriend", "Bye Bye Bye", and "It's Gonna Be Me" and debuted their new song, "Paradise", which was released two days later as a track on Timberlake's sixth studio album,
Everything I Thought It Was. The same year, "
Bye Bye Bye" resurged in popularity after it was featured in the 2024
Marvel Cinematic Universe film
Deadpool & Wolverine. Regarding the band's future, Chasez made a statement during a podcast appearance in November 2024, stating: "Right now everybody's focused on different projects. But we're always talking in the background, and it only takes like one idea to pop, so anything's possible." ==Artistry==