More about the BSB and N'sync

Is there more than meets the eye in the record-breaking sales of the No Strings Attached album of N'Sync. A fan of the Backstreet Boys who has requested not to be identified, believes there is and sent this letter accompanied by a copy of the March 29 report from MTV as proof.

"I would first of all like to thank you for considering the feelings of Backstreet Boys fans when you wrote in your April 14 column by not in any way attempting to lift up N'Sync by putting down our beloved BSB. It's good to know that you're not one of those insensitive and lazy writers who think the best way to praise a star is to knock another star or to compare them.

Thank you also for continuing to give the Backstreet Boys the credit they deserve because, after all, they were the ones who opened doors and paved the way for N'Sync and all those other so-called boy bands (which is perhaps not a good thing to some people who love ear-splitting rock or mysogynis-tic/hatred-igniting rap music, but for the millions of us who love eardrum-friendly and clean love songs, boy bands are great). In my book, you're in the same league as Mr. David Wild, the Rolling Stone senior editor, who wrote the intelligent and fair cover story on BSB in a January issue of that magazine, wherein he gave them credit for "changing the pop turf dramatically, creating a territory where music has become a theme park of the heart." He wrote that several months after the BSB album came out, so it wasn't written for "publicity effect." In the article he also went so far as to ask BSB what they thought of the boy bands that came after them since many of them were obviously just doing BSB's thing, in other words, imitating them. BSB's Howie D. gave a very diplomatic response then, but it can't be fun for them when they had to go through some three to five years of rejection especially in their own country before breaking through, while most of those other boy bands make it through by just riding the wave that BSB started.

One such group is N'Sync, the self-proclaimed top rival of the Boys, that was formed mainly because their oldest member and 'creator' Chris, was miffed with his college buddy, BSB's Howie D., for not inviting him to be a BSB member, so he went and put together his own group, making sure that the youngest member was also a cute blond (although not quite a genuine blond) who sounded much like BSB's Nick C., and that the other soloist would sound much like BSB's Brian L. N'Sync came out with their debut US album just a year after BSB's own debut US album became a huge seller, but no one cared until they stepped into BSB's shoes for a Disney Channel mini-concert (BSB backed out at the last minute because of their management problems at the time, they had just fired their former managers who also happened to be N'Sync's managers, and because Brian L.was still somewhat recovering from the heart surgery he underwent less than two months before). That proved to be N'Sync's biggest break then because it was that vacated BSB gig that got them noticed and catapulted their album to the top 10. Ever since then, they've been following BSB's every move closely, attempting each and every time to duplicate and even surpass them, the latest being this first week album sales record thing, which according to an MTV news report, the N'Sync camp waged an all-out campaign for, calling on fans through their fan clubs to buy multiple copies of their new album on its first week of release SPECIFICALLY to break the Boys' May 1999 sales record for their Millennium album. Just how idiotic is that? We, BSB fans, can surely be excused for crying foul and calling that cheating. It was selfishly manipulative of the N'Sync camp to do such a thing, something even seen-everything media types at MTV, Rolling Stone and