It might sound crazy, but *NSYNC was in danger of going “Bye Bye Bye” before the boy band’s signature song was released 25 years ago on Jan. 17, 2000.
After scoring hits such as “I Want You Back” and “Tearin’ Up My Heart” on their self-titled debut album — released in 1997 in Germany and 1998 in the US — the group was locked in a highly publicized legal battle with former manager Lou Pearlman and former label RCA Records. After suing Pearlman for fraud and misrepresentation, they were countersued with the threat of no longer being able to record or perform under the name *NSYNC.
But after facing an uncertain future, the quintet of Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass and Chris Kirkpatrick settled out of court and said goodbye to all that drama with “Bye Bye Bye,” the smash single that found them embarking on a new chapter with a new label, Jive Records, and a new attitude.
The first single from *NSYNC’s blockbuster album “No Strings Attached” was a tie-cutting statement that took them to the stratospheric heights at the dawn of the new millennium.
“I guess it was the right timing — let’s be real,” Fatone, 47, exclusively told The Post. “It happened [right after] the lawsuit. All eyes were on us. What was going on? Are they gonna put a new album out?
“It’s a message more about a girl and a guy and their relationship, not so much about the business itself. But it kind of worked that way.”
Indeed, for *NSYNC, the breakup song was a defiant declaration of independence.
“It was the emancipation of a boy band that had legions of fans on a global basis,” said Barry Weiss, former president of Jive Records. “It was a perfect epithet to the first stage of their career and represented their emancipation, where they took matters into their own hands.”
And as *NSYNC gave “Bye Bye Bye” a whole new meaning, they capitalized on all of the controversy.
“The whole court case and the whole dispute … played out in the court of public opinion,” said Weiss. “So it also gave tremendous momentum to the song when it came out. The record sort of encapsulated everything that was going on with the group and their struggles against Lou Pearlman and the big bad wolf of the record company, and it all just played into the public sympathy and led to a huge explosion of the song on impact.”
Although it couldn’t have played out any better for *NSYNC, the perfectly timed tune wasn’t designed to be a shrewd power move.
“When we cut that record, we had no knowledge of what was going to go down with the lawsuit with Lou, and so it wasn’t like a preconceived situation that, ‘Oh, this is the song,’ ” said Johnny Wright, *NSYNC’s former manager who now manages Timberlake. “It just happened to play into that.”
But while it seems as if “Bye Bye Bye” was always meant to be for *NSYNC, the song was first given to another boy band: Five, a British quintet managed by Simon Cowell.
“This boy band was kind of more on the rap side, and the lead singer of the band was trying to sing, ‘Bye, bye, bye’ and he was like, ‘This song is ridiculous,’” said Andreas Carlsson, who co-wrote the tune with its producers Kristian Lundin and Jake Schulze. “Halfway through the song, it’s like, ‘I can’t sing this crap with a British accent!’
“So they left and didn’t want to do the song. So we were sitting on the song. And thankfully we were able to give it then to *NSYNC. It was serendipity.”
Ironically, Fatone said, “We actually got handed ‘Slam Dunk (Da Funk) by Five one time, and we turned that down.”
The song all began with the title. “When ‘Bye Bye Bye’ came up, it was just like filling in the blanks,” said Carlsson, whose lyrics were inspired by his own breakup. “It was ‘bye bye bye’ to my ex-girlfriend.”
Musically, the Swedish tunesmiths — who had previously worked with the Backstreet Boys — were influenced by ’90s R&B and hip-hop.
“It was like, ‘Hey, if Destiny Child can do ‘Bills, Bills, Bills,’ we can do ‘Bye Bye Bye,’ ” said Carlsson, who would also go on to co-write “It’s Gonna Be Me,” the second single from “No Strings Attached.”
“We thought we had swag.”
And *NSYNC was ready to move in a more R&B/hip-hop direction.
“That’s kind of what we listened to, and that’s really what Justin’s vocals are like,” said Fatone.
“They were all into basketball and sneakers,” added Wright. “They were into things that warranted that music to represent who they really were.”
Recording the song at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, Fatone said that he and his bandmates were instantly optimistic about it.
“We’re all excited about it,” he said. “And, you know, you always think, ‘OK, hopefully it has potential. Hopefully it moves you or makes you want to bop your head.’ ”
Jive Records was immediately hooked by “Bye Bye Bye.” “Johnny Wright had sent it to us while we were in discussions with them, and we thought that this was like an instant, one-listen hit,” said Weiss. “We were just like, ‘This is a f—king smash.’ ”
Based on “Bye Bye Bye,” Jive Record pursued *NSYNC — even though the label was already home to another major boy band in the Backstreet Boys. “The Backstreet Boys were really pissed off,” said Weiss. “NSYNC didn’t really give a s—t.”
And amid the legal battles, “Bye Bye Bye” got its live premiere before they were even allowed to release the song.
“When the Radio Music Awards came up,” said Wright, “we were like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go play that show and we’re going to perform this record so that no matter if we lose the [battle], and someone else gets the record, it’s going to be out there that we cut this and we put this record into the public first.’ ”
“Bye Bye Bye” would go on to launch record-setting sales of “No Strings Attached” after the album’s release on March 21, 2000 and even earned a Record of the Year Grammy nomination in 2001. And 24 years later, the song was embraced by a whole new generation when it was featured in the opening sequence of 2024 blockbuster “Deadpool and Wolverine,” with Ryan Reynolds’ character doing the iconic choreography from the video.
“Which is even crazier with the whole trending of now people going, ‘Oh look, it’s the Deadpool dance,’ ” said Fatone. “You’re like, ‘No, it’s not a Deadpool dance. It’s actually ‘Bye Bye Bye.’ “
For Fatone — who joins the cast of the Broadway musical “& Juliet” on Tuesday for nine weeks — the song still makes him want to bust the moves a quarter century later.
“It brings me back to a time when we were learning how to be adults,’ ” he said. “It was ‘bye bye bye’ to childhood.”
