No Strings Attached is the third studio album by American boy band NSYNC. It was released by Jive Records on March 21, 2000. 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.
After several delays due to legal battles, 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. 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.
It 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.
Background
thumb|right|upright|The album was inspired by the song "[[I've Got No Strings" from Pinocchio, following the lawsuit between Lou Pearlman and BMG]]
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.
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
thumb|upright|Some of the songwriters and producers for the album including [[Max Martin came from Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden.]]
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.
Accordingly, NSYNC insisted that they choose producers and songwriters for the album. 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.
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". The album did, however, retain the pop style of its predecessor. 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. 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
thumb|right|NSYNC made multiple appearances on [[Total Request Live to promote the album, including on its release date.]]
No Strings Attached was initially planned for release from September to November 1999. This caused fan interest in the album to grow, as coverage of the lawsuit was televised on MTV.
No Strings Attached was initially scheduled to be released in stores on March 7, 2000, but NSYNC decided to record "Just Got Paid" with Teddy Riley, which delayed the album to March 21, 2000. NSYNC made several media appearances prior to its release, including on MTV, Good Morning America, Saturday Night Live, and the Oscars. They also appeared on several advertisements for Verizon Wireless and Chili's, where they promoted the release date. The "Bye Bye Bye" music video was heavily rotated, Former MTV chairman and CEO Tom Freston praised NSYNC's accessibility to cater towards audiences by using "heavy video rotation [and] mini-biographies" in addition to backstage studio environments including "the Super Bowl [and] Total Request Live (TRL)". No commercial singles for any song were distributed before the release of No Strings Attached to increase demand.
No Strings Attached Tour
NSYNC embarked on their second tour titled the No Strings Attached Tour in support of the album, which was sponsored by MCY.com and Nabisco, and produced by SFX Touring. One million tickets were sold during the first day of availability, with all 50 initial dates sold out. It began at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi on May 9, 2000. When the tour ended in December 2000, it became the second highest-grossing tour in North America that year, earning more than $70 million. The concerts at Madison Square Garden were filmed for a HBO special that attracted over six million viewers, becoming one of the highest rated concert specials on the network. The special was released as the DVD/VHS Live from Madison Square Garden on November 21, 2000.
Critical reception
No Strings Attached received generally favorable reviews from music critics. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine stated that NSYNC "might sound the same as ever" to critics, but acknowledged that No Strings Attached "blows away their previous record". He added that it "pulls away from the standard dance-pop formula".
No Strings Attached was nominated in the category for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. At the 2000 Billboard Music Awards, the album led NSYNC to receive four awards in categories such as Album of the Year and Top 40 Artist of the Year.
Commercial performance
Many retailers around the United States had predicted that, "with an impressive show of sales strength", No Strings Attached could "culminate into the biggest first week ever in the SoundScan era". Jive Records had already shipped 9.2 million units of the album, and reorders were already made shortly after the album's release in record stores. At online retailer Amazon, advance sales for the album were the biggest at the time. Meanwhile, orders for the album were aggressive on the West Coast. Some stores stayed open until midnight specifically for the album. According to Pareles, the sales of No Strings Attached were "a tribute to Jive Records' skill at building anticipation" for the album. The strength of its lead single and music video, "Bye Bye Bye", and Internet song previews for the album provided the build-up. as their second studio album Millennium, sold more than 1.13 million copies in its first week in 1999.
No Strings Attached sold over 2.4 million copies in the United States in its first week, setting a record for the most copies of an album sold in a single week and becoming the first album to sell more than two million copies in a week since the chart adopted Nielsen SoundScan tracking in May 1991. The figures surpassed the album's successor Celebritys debut sales of over 1.88 million units, retaining the recognition as NSYNC's highest-debut in their career. Chartwise, the album debuted on the Billboard 200 at number one. It topped the chart for eight consecutive weeks, becoming one of the longest-running number-one albums of 2000. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified No Strings Attached nine-times Platinum on April 19, 2000, becoming the highest-certified single disc album in the initial RIAA audit in that year. It broke the record previously set in 1993 by The Bodyguard soundtrack, which was certified six-times Platinum in the RIAA's first audit. No Strings Attached shipped 10 million copies domestically in 2000 alone, of which 9,936,104 were sold, according to Nielsen Soundscan. This consequently made No Strings Attached the highest-selling album of 2000 in the United States. As of October 2014, No Strings Attached sold 11.16 million copies per SoundScan. An additional 1.52 million copies sold through the BMG Music Club are not included in SoundScan's total. In 2000, No Strings Attached was ranked at number one on the Billboard 200 year end chart. According to Billboard, No Strings Attached was the top album of the decade.
Legacy
By status, NSYNC was considered a clone of the Backstreet Boys. With the success that the band attained with No Strings Attached, that notion was obliterated, even calling them as a serious rival with their label mate. On November 21, 2000, the Backstreet Boys issued their follow-up album Black & Blue, which sold 1.6 million in its debut week domestically, alongside selling 5 million copies worldwide. According to Richard Skanse of Rolling Stone, the album gave the group its landmark achievement. For Janet Kleinbaum, Jive's then-Vice President of Artist Marketing, the "yardstick is definitely extended", Craig Seymour of the same publication said, "What has the industry buzzing is not only that 2.4 million fans rushed to the stores, but that teen-pop behemoth Jive Records was in a unique and almost unprecedented position to meet the stores' demand". This demand for physical copies of the album was met by Jive by shipping millions of units, leading to the album's release date. The label was able to ship 4.2 million copies for the album's official release date, then couriered another 2.3 million in reorders the next day on March 22, 2000. Retailer Grandoni said, "If they hadn't been ready for it, stores would have sold out after a couple of days, which would have limited their first-week sales". Writing for Consequence of Sound, Anna Rahmanan stated that South Korean boy band BTS have followed in NSYNC's footsteps in crossing music genres, as their initial start as a hip hop group had led them to branch out into different genres such as K-pop, EDM, and R&B. She complimented their adaptability by "tearing a page out of 'N Sync's playbook", while simultaneously showcasing their originality.
Track listing
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.
|align="center"|2
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|-
|-
!scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)
| style="text-align:center;"|12
|-
|-
!scope="row"|European Albums Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|12
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Icelandic Albums (Tónlist)
|align="center"|26
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|style="text-align:center;"|19
|-
!scope="row"|Malaysian Albums (IFPI)
| style="text-align:center;"|1
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Singaporean Albums (SPVA)
|align="center"|1
|-
!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (Promusicae)
|align="center"|32
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+Year-end chart performance for No Strings Attached in 2000
! scope="col"| Chart (2000)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
!scope="row"|Australian Albums (ARIA)
|45
|-
! scope="row"|Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
|83
|-
! scope="row"|Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
|3
|-
!scope="row"|Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)
|97
|-
!scope="row"|German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
|69
|-
! scope="row"| Singaporean English Albums (SPVA)
| 3
|-
! scope="row"|South Korean International Albums (MIAK)
| 26
|-
!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)
|86
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
|1
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Year-end chart performance for No Strings Attached in 2001
! scope="col"| Chart (2001)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
!scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 138
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
|30
|}
Decade-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Decade-end chart performance for No Strings Attached from 2000 to 2009
! scope="col"| Chart (2000–2009)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
|1
|}
Certifications
See also
- List of best-selling albums in the United States
- List of fastest-selling albums
- List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 2000