However, they matched Backstreet Boys’ total of six top 10s. Meanwhile, N’Sync yielded slightly fewer top 40 songs (nine, in total).

Backstreet Boys added one more top 40 song, in 2005, with “Incomplete”. However, once they hit their stride, they churned out eleven top 40 hits out of twelve releases through 2002, when N’Sync went on hiatus. SinglesĪs mentioned earlier, Backstreet Boys had to find success in Europe before they made it big in the States. So if we’re looking purely at album sales, this round is a draw. debut) to amass nine consecutive top 10 albums that’s an active streak only one other artist (Sade) can beat. Additionally, Backstreet Boys’ cumulative US album sales are, by conservative estimates, at least five million higher than N’Sync’s.įinally, due to Backstreet Boys’ continued output - they released a new studio album as recently as 2013 - they have managed (since their U.S. However, while No Strings Attached won the battle, Backstreet Boys’ album Millennium won the war: total sales for the albums stand at 12,250,000 for Millennium and 11,160,000 for No Strings Attached. And just for good measure, N’Sync also have the second best sales week ever: third album, Celebrity, sold just shy of 1.88 million copies upon release in July of 2001.Īccordingly, N’Sync should be declared the winners of this round. Records are meant to be broken, but unless the public starts buying albums again (unlikely) and/or Billboard radically changes the methodology for what counts as an album sale (possible), N’Sync’s one-week sales record will always stand. Taylor Swift, and possibly Adele, are the only artists who can even hope to sell one million copies - an enormous accomplishment - in a single week. For an album to sell 2.4 million copies in a single week today would require a powerful mix of the right artist at the right point in their career with the right marketing and a huge buzz-generating first single. The Backstreet Boys’ follow-up, Black and Blue, then sold 1,591,191 copies, making Backstreet Boys the first artist to have back-to-back albums debut with over a million in sales.īut this ended up being small potatoes compared to their rivals: N’Sync famously made history when they sold 2,415,859 copies of their second album, No Strings Attached, in late March of 2000.Ģ.4 million copies! That’s about as many copies as Beyonce’s last album - one of the best-selling albums of this decade - has sold in its entire run. This kickstarted a new trend of “fastest selling album” (essentially, who had the best first week sales) that everyone from Britney Spears to Eminem to Limp Bizkit were suddenly a part of. When Backstreet Boys’ second US album, Millennium, debuted in May of 1999, it sold 1,135,505 copies, breaking a one-week sales record previously held by the album-selling behemoth country music star Garth Brooks. In determining which boy band is the most definitive, many factors have to be considered album sales is usually where most arguments start. But it’s 2015, and we need to figure out once and for all which is the definitive boy band of the ‘90s. Naturally, because both bands’ career origins, level of success, and time in the spotlight were so similar, they have become forever intwined in pop culture’s collective unconscious. We all live in the entertainment community where there is a lot of LGBTQ and we embrace that.'īackstreet Boys released their last studio album, DNA, in 2019, which earned the group their third number-one LP.Soon, both bands were dominating the pop landscape through the late ‘90s and into the early ‘00s. 'We're doing it for Pride, which will be really good,” said Bass, as Fatone added: 'It's one of those things where all Pride is really near and dear to our hearts. It's going to be really big and we're really excited.' We're going to announce it in the next week … And it's going to be huge. maybe, we're just going to say we're going to be doing something special. 'What we're talking about doing … We can't give away too much. 'Since it is Pride Month, I guess we can kind of tease something,' Carter shared at the time. It’s been rumored for weeks that BSB and *NSYNC would collaborate, and it appears that wish is finally coming true for a lot of their fans.Įarlier this month, Entertainment Online caught the four boy band stars chatting about their potential collaboration via Instagram Live.

Who were the members of insync