In this excerpt from its June 1, 2001, cover story, EW looks at the future of teen pop.
''Sick and tired of hearing all these people talk about/ What's the deal with this pop life, and when is it gonna fade out?/ The thing you got to realize, what we're doing is not a trend/ We got the gift of melody, we're gonna bring it 'til the end.'' -- ''Pop,'' cowritten by Justin Timberlake
Methinks Justin doth protest too much. 'N Sync, the pubertucus rex of the boy band kingdom, no doubt mean their latest quest to top the charts as a defiant ''We're here, our skin is clear, get used to it'' battle cry, but there's something startlingly insecure about this tune. Perhaps they subconsciously sense, as we do, that the current teen pop movement is on the brink of going bye, bye, bye.
For the past five years, whether in music, movies, or TV, teenagers have been the darlings of the entertainment industry. With 1996's ''Scream,'' Dimension Films kicked off a collective bar mitzvah: Today, you are a marketing target! Yet no matter how all encompassing and profitable this streak has been, we all know you can't spell ''trend'' without ''e-n-d.'' Countless Britney wannabes and nine Freddie Prinze Jr. movies later, there are signs teens themselves are growing weary of bouncy beats and well gelled young casts.
Maybe it's the topsy turvy economy: The giddy economic times of the late '90s helped spur the love of boppy tunes and frothy films, much in the way that the early '90s recession informed gloomy grunge. ''You gotta equate the boy bands to the Nasdaq,'' says Warner Bros. Records A&R exec Jeff Blue, who recalls how teens impetuously reacted to new groups like adults did on hearing about a new tech stock. ''You [were] gonna buy it even though you [didn't] know exactly what they do.''
Or maybe it's some real life growing pains. Many of the hottest teen stars are barely clinging to their early 20s, and it will only get harder for younger fans to muster a shriek for idols like Syncer Joey Fatone, 24, and 98 Degree's Jeff Timmons, 28, whose female fans now include their baby daughters.
Now, put down your Jessica Simpson pen and 3LW stationery and hold that angry letter: We're not saying teen entertainment is ready to join Tiffany and the Brat Pack in the pop culture morgue. Teenagers are hardly fading away -- quite the contrary, there will be 35 million 12- to 19-year-olds in 2010, compared with 31 million now, according to Teenage Research Unlimited. But the comparative crotchety adults in charge of producing records, TV, and movies believe the voice of this increasingly fickle generation has changed, and it will no longer cheer for the same formulas.
Glancing at the week's charts -- past the belly shirt and/ or goatee sporting groups such as Eden's Crush, O-Town, Dream, and S Club 7 -- it feels like business as usual on the teen pop assembly line. The total SoundScan album sales for Aaron Carter's debut CD are an impressive 1.9 million -- better than Radiohead's ''Kid A.'' Yet these numbers fall short of the multimillion sellers racked up by Christina Aguilera and Co. just a year ago.
The true litmus test for teen pop will come July 24 when 'N Sync's new album, ''Celebrity,'' determines whether that title is time sensitive. '''N Sync's next record will sell less than the one before, and Britney Spears' will sell less,'' predicts John Dee, an A&R VP at Hollywood Records. The music industry is anticipating (many eagerly so) a downturn because it believes teens are burned out on the sound. ''Unless it was the most spectacular group of lads ever, [a boy band] would be an imprudent signing,'' says A&M president Ron Fair, who produced the vocals for the Christina Aguilera/ Mya/ Lil' Kim/ Pink single, ''Lady Marmalade.'' ''The stock boy band assembled by a guru and groomed… that whole trained seal act, that moment has passed.'' Competition has grown so fierce that even the top bands realize they can't fumble a move. ''Right now, if you disappear for too long, you kind of get forgotten,'' confirms 'N Sync's Lance Bass. ''Or someone will easily step in and go, 'Okay, I can do it!'''
He should know, since his own group stepped in on the genre's now old-timers, the Backstreet Boys. Last fall, ''Black & Blue'' sold nearly a million fewer copies in its first week than 'N Sync's record 2.4 million selling ''No Strings Attached'' did. That hardly made ''Blue'''s 1.6 million a flop, but the group has since downscaled its next tour from stadiums to arenas. They're reportedly aiming smaller so the group can be closer to its fans.
Ironically, having too many fans can be a sign of trouble in the first place. When a craze gets too mainstream, it becomes less alluring. This winter, top teen idols were featured during two of America's most high profile annual events, the Super Bowl (with Britney and 'N Sync leading the halftime mass groove) and the Oscars (with Britney shaking it through her much touted Pepsi commercial). When kids find themselves sitting around the TV while their mothers hum along with Justin, it sucks the cool right out of it, no matter how revealing Spears' outfit is. ''When something gets that big that it goes into other generations, it's a sign that it's over,'' says Barbara Coulon of the trendspotting firm Youth Intelligence. ''Teens want their own brands, their own idols.'' And if you weren't turned off by Dad smiling at Britney, then Bob Dole doing it should seal the deal.
(Additional reporting by Ethan Alter and Chris Willman)
Read EW's June 1, 2001, cover story to get more on the death knell of the teen entertainment craze.
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