*NSYNC

*NSYNC was a massively successful American boyband formed in 1995 who, in addition to hits like "It's Gonna Be Me" and "Girlfriend", provided a launch pad for Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, the band's founding members.

The impetus for the formation of the band was the success of Lou Pearlman's first act, the Backstreet Boys. *NSYNC's debut album, *NSYNC, was released in 1997 and the band embarked on a tour of Europe. Their success in Europe predated their success in America, where their album was released two years later. Initial American sales were slow, but after being championed by Disney the album sales picked up and it reached No.2 in the charts.

They followed this success with Home for Christmas (1998) which performed well, selling over two million copies, but 1998 was also the year in which they sued Pearlman, who they accused of misappropriating the proceeds of their fame. The result of the ensuing legal wrangle was that they split with Pearlman and RCA, their record label. No Strings Attached was released in 2000 and sold in huge numbers: over nine million units by the end of 2000. They followed this with an extremely popular tour.

Appetite was whetted for the next release, Celebrity, and it sold well, though not as well as their previous two albums. But by 2002 the group took a hiatus to accommodate the release of Timberlake's solo album Justified. One by one the band-members involved themselves in other ventures, and the group have still not resumed despite having fulfilled only two of a five album deal for Jive Records.