The documentary Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boy Bands is streaming now on Paramount+, and it puts the boy band phenomenon of ’90s/2000s into historical context, explaining how girls have been screaming for male groups since the days of The Beatles, The Jackson 5 and The Osmonds.
*NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick, one of several boy banders featured in the doc, tells ABC Audio that at first, The Beatles weren’t taken seriously because “they had these girls coming in and screaming,” adding, “They were dismissed at first, too, as being these little fad mop top haircut guys that just appealed to young girls.”
Watching the doc chart the rise of New Edition, New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, Hanson, *NSYNC and 98 Degrees, it shows that for the most part, the guys have all emerged relatively healthy and happy. Chris believes the group dynamic that made them stars also saved them.
“You fight like brothers, but you also support yourselves like brothers,” he explains. “You realize that, as dark as it gets or as sad as you are … there’s four other people going through the same thing.”
And that’s created a bond among all boy banders, Chris says: “It was all like going to this really cool college together, but we were all in different fraternities.”
The doc also stresses how young girls’ musical tastes have, for decades, been the true driver of pop music — and Chris thinks some kind of *NSYNC reunion would be a nice thank-you.
“We have fans that are still diehards and still into it and still keeping our name alive, buying merch or whatever,” he says. “And for that reason, I definitely feel like it would be a great thing for the five of us to do something for fans.”
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