No Strings Attached is the third studio album by American boy band NSYNC. It was released by Jive Records on March 21, 2000, after several delays due to legal battles. Seeking to distinguish their music from others', NSYNC chose to incorporate pop and R&B styles. Before the release of the album, the band separated from their management, Trans Continental, and their label RCA Records; its title is a play on the idea of independence from corporate control. Contributions to the album's production came from a wide range of producers, including NSYNC members Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, and collaborators including Kristian Lundin, Jake Schulze, Rami, Teddy Riley, Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, Richard Marx, Veit Renn, Babyface, and Guy Roche.
No Strings Attached received generally favorable reviews from music critics, many of whom praised the production. The album debuted atop the US Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 2.4 million copies, setting the record for one-week sales in the country; a record that remained for 15 years until Adele surpassed the first-week sales record with her third studio album 25 (2015). Four singles were released from the album. Its lead single "Bye Bye Bye" is credited with creating the hype for the album's eventual landmark success, while "It's Gonna Be Me" became their only number-one on the Billboard Hot 100. No Strings Attached was the best-selling album of 2000. NSYNC promoted the album through the No Strings Attached Tour in 2000, which was the second-highest-grossing tour in North America of that year.
No Strings Attached was considered to be the peak of the teen pop genre, as CDs were beginning to be phased out in favor of peer-to-peer file sharing software such as Napster and LimeWire, as well as trends shifting away from the genre, beginning with the Backstreet Boys' album Black & Blue (2000). NSYNC were considered to be influential in crossing over music genres, which helped distinguish themselves from the Backstreet Boys, and inspire other boy bands to experiment with different genres of music while expressing their originality. The album has sold over 14 million copies worldwide.
Background
The title of the album alludes to puppets and the idea of independence NSYNC earned following a legal battle between its then-management. NSYNC was signed by Trans Continental Management to Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) in Germany, due to a pre-existing deal, and its distribution rights in the United States were automatically bought by RCA. In 1999, NSYNC sued Trans Continental and financier, Louis J. Pearlman, due to illicit corporate practices. They cited Pearlman's defrauding the group, which, according to MTV, was more than fifty percent of their earnings, rather than his promise of only receiving one-sixth of the profits. The band, whose self-titled debut album and follow up had commercial success, insisted "they have not seen enough of the profits" that they had generated by selling eight million albums in the United States alone. On October 12, 1999, Trans Continental, along with RCA's parent, BMG Entertainment, filed a $195 million suit in a federal court to bar NSYNC's transference to Jive and from performing or recording under their current name, as well as forcing them to return their master recordings from 1999 in preparation for their second album.
With an undisclosed settlement in 2000, NSYNC severed their recording contract with Trans Continental and switched labels from RCA Records to Jive Records, which included artists such as the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Jive immediately requested that the album was to be sold to retailers in March, which caused Pearlman and BMG to file a $150 million breach-of-contract suit and an injunction to stop them. NSYNC filed a countersuit in response, with member JC Chasez calling Pearlman "an unscrupulous, greedy and sophisticated businessman who posed as an unselfish, loving father figure and took advantage of our trust". The judge, Anne C. Conway rejected Pearlman and BMG's injunction, stating that "the defendants have raised serious questions [...] about Mr. Pearlman and his dealings".
The album's title was thought of by member Chris Kirkpatrick during a car ride in London after the settlement, where they were inspired by the song "I've Got No Strings" from the 1940 film, Pinocchio. The titling of the album is similar to the Backstreet Boys' who also had legal wrangling with Pearlman which concluded to a settlement in October 1998 that was not disclosed; the Backstreet Boys "took a shot" at Pearlman by titling their 2000 studio album, Black & Blue. Meanwhile, the title No Strings Attached was announced in September 1999, during when the legal battle was still ongoing. Kirkpatrick revealed that the title and the album's cover art have a personal meaning to them. According to him, the album was designed to show that they felt they were puppets stranded on strings, which alludes to their destiny being controlled. In an interview, he further explained the relationship of the strings to the album, stating that "the only reasons that the strings are still attached on the album is so people can get the whole feel of the vibe of [...] No Strings Attached".
Recording and production
While the legal suit was underway, NSYNC continued to record songs for the album. The majority of the songs recorded were without the support of a record label, which meant that the band was able to freely select which songs would make the cut. However, several producers were unwilling to work with the group, as they weren't sent to them via a record label. Despite the band switching labels, they still retained their manager and mentor from Trans Continental, Johnny Wright, and stayed at his ranch in Orlando, Florida. Through Jive, the band was introduced to American record producer Teddy Riley, who would remake Johnny Kemp's 1988 "Just Got Paid" with them, and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, who produced "It Makes Me Ill" for the album. One of the recording sessions for the album took place in a tiny studio in Burbank. Recording of "Just Got Paid" pushed the album's in-store release date of March 7, 2000, to the new date of March 21, 2000. The ballad "That's When I'll Stop Loving You", written by Diane Warren, was recorded there under the production of French-born producer Guy Roche in 1999.
Accordingly, NSYNC insisted that they choose producers and songwriters for the album. On No Strings Attached, the band commissioned Swedish and German songwriters and producers, who had produced songs for the Backstreet Boys. Aside from getting a number-one album on the chart, the group wanted to distinguish their music from the style of the Backstreet Boys, with whom they had shared the same producers. To that end, they told the Swedish team of Cheiron Studios to change the band's tune. Wright recalls, "We basically told them, 'We like your concepts for songs and we love the way you produce. But you're gonna have to do it in a different way so that it conforms to how we want our sound to be." This direction resulted to harder-edge songs such as "Bye Bye Bye", which production was handled by the Swedish team. Max Martin, who also came from Cheiron and was known for producing songs for NSYNC's label mates, also contributed to the album by co-writing the single "It's Gonna Be Me". Martin was initially hesitant to provide the group his music due to the ongoing lawsuit, but relented when Wright pleaded for him to allow NSYNC to perform them at the Radio Music Awards, indicating that it could be the final time fans could see them perform.
Despite the new direction the band had wanted to take, the early recording process found some of the producers and writers submitting tracks which were "in the vein of NSYNC's earlier, softer sound". The band thought that if the collaborators could not produce what they were looking for, they would find it themselves. This resulted in some of the band members contributing to a number of tracks on the album. On specific songs, songwriter and producer Veit Renn collaborated with band member JC Chasez, who co-authored the album's title track and three other songs. Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake helped pen and produce the album's track "I'll Be Good for You". Lastly, another song that made the record was "Digital Get Down", a song about videophone sex that TV Guide described as "hailing the joys of cybersex. Do they think the braces brigade in 'N Sync's audience will recognize the R-rated oomph?"
Music and lyrics Timberlake said that the album is a diverse body of work that explores dimensions of R&B within pop music. He added that the album "goes totally mainstream and it goes into some dance- and club-style songs". There are few mid-tempo songs and ballads on No Strings Attached, a result of the band's desire to have a "fun" album. The album did, however, retain the pop style of its predecessor. According to Entertainment Weekly, the album's musical style is that of Top 40, with a funky beat, while Billboard described it as "Millennial interpretations of New Jack Swing, and staccato rap-adjacent flows that were previously made mainstream by Destiny's Child and TLC". Chasez also stated that the album is "in your face", comparing the album's "chopped and punched" production to the discography of Michael Jackson.
In his article for The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote in 2000: Flush with artistic freedom, 'N Sync heads straight for the past: specifically the 1980s rhythm-and-blues that sought to balance pretty melody atop hip-hop's street-level beat. Like the Rolling Stones discovering 1950s Chicago blues, 'N Sync has latched onto the highly synthesized, jigsaw rhythms of 1980s phenomena from Michael Jackson to New Edition to Zapp. In a direct tribute to the new jack swing of the 1980s, 'N Sync remakes Johnny Kemp's 1988 hit "Just Got Paid" with its original producer, Teddy Riley.
Writing about No Strings Attached, music critics noted that the song "Digital Get Down" is about video cybersex, which is a clear indicator of post-pubescent consciousness of the group. In the article "Parents' Guide" published in Entertainment Weekly, Lois Alter Mark analyzed the contents of new albums during the time, stating that the album's recurring theme is about puppy love, and has sexual content that is categorized as mildly suggestive and a language that is preteen friendly. Rolling Stone described the "futuristic synth-driven" song as "an eruption of hormones and harmonies all at once, with three and a half minutes of big beats and grown-up innuendo". The European album edition's second single "I'll Never Stop" is considered by Al Shipley of Billboard to closely resemble the band's Europop sounding debut album, while "I'll Be Good For You" is a soulful track that samples "Believe in Love" by Teddy Pendergrass. Both "Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay)" and "It Makes Me Ill" were considered by Al Shipley of Billboard as deep-cut songs which attracted "the young fans who made teen pop into a cottage industry", noting that Ariana Grande, an "attentive student of early 2000s pop/R&B crossover", quoted the lyrics of the latter on the Billboard Hot 100 number two single "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored". NSYNC was also inspired by the hip-hop genre, incorporating beat-box type vocals in "It's Gonna Be Me", semi-rapping in "Just Got Paid", and percussion in "Bringin' Da Noise".
Promotion