I was, at the time, seeing a music critic who took me to a Backstreet Boys show that he was reviewing. I - as I mentioned, I have only seen one of these bands. And between that and its kind of cultural cachet, the "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" "I Want It That Way," I think this is advantage Backstreet. Because, you know, as a single gay man, every bar and club had "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" video on a loop, and I fell for it. HOLMES: All right, Glen, what do you think? Especially, we have to consider our listeners, right? So I don't know the exact demographic breakdown of our listeners, but I feel like a lot of them might lean more to the nostalgia and the very down-the-middleness of "I Want It That Way" versus, like, you know, "Pop" or "Girlfriend." But I'm going to say Backstreet Boys is just, like, slightly ahead. So I think I lean toward Backstreet Boys, maybe. HARRIS: Well, yeah, Stephen makes a good point that I hadn't actually really considered, which is, yes, Backstreet Boys are definitely still there, still around, and they are drawing in lots of crowds. What do you think - Backstreet Boys versus NSYNC? WELDON: Oh, I didn't know we were doing that. THOMPSON: But I'm going to say NSYNC, 58 to 42 percentage-wise THOMPSON: So I do think the Backstreet Boys are gaining. They're putting out Christmas albums as recently as within the last few years, whereas NSYNC is kind of like, that's Justin Timberlake's old thing, right? The Backstreet Boys will kind of say yes to anything. THOMPSON: I do want to say, like, the - one thing the Backstreet Boys have going for them is that the Backstreet Boys have really stayed together as a group, and they're kind of enjoying a certain omnipresence, where they're popping up in commercials. THOMPSON: Before "Man Of The Woods" changed everything. If we had asked this question before the Timberlake decay, before "Man Of The Woods," for example, I think we might have gotten a different answer. HARRIS: But JC has become the ultimate NSYNC in his place, I feel. Now, countering that is, I feel like - first of all, there's been a little bit of a curdling of the public's relationship with Justin Timberlake in recent years. Because Justin Timberlake had such a fruitful solo career, I think a lot of people are probably going to lean NSYNC. But I feel like for a long time, NSYNC was considered the better of the two, in part due to the Justin Timberlake of it all. I think at the time - and, again, many people will - are screaming at their podcasting devices right now that I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. THOMPSON: Well, at the risk of doing a "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire"-style filibuster, we can talk through some of the factors in play here. HOLMES: This is, who do you think our listeners prefer in the battle of NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys? Now, remember, this is not, who do you prefer? But I am going to go directly to Stephen, our music guy, to kick us off with NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys. HOLMES: And I will reveal that at a later time. WELDON: I bet I can guess which one, too. I will say, off the top, I have only seen one of these bands live. Now, this is, of course, your boy-band matchup between the Justin Timberlake of it all and the not Justin Timberlake of it all. So we are going to start with NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys. So each of us, your four hosts, will try to guess your responses to each of these matchups, and we will get the right answers from our sharp-witted producers, and we will see who got the most right. And in the manner of, say, "Family Feud" or "Card Sharks," we're going to play a game where our objective is to guess what you said when we asked you. So we asked you, our listeners, to cast your votes on some of pop culture's really, truly important historic standoffs. But, like a lot of other people, we've been highly amused by the idea that they are mortal enemies - the pink fashion icon versus one of the most important scientists of all time, the Greta Gerwig confection versus the Christopher Nolan epic. HOLMES: We should start by saying that we will be covering both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer." This is not our coverage of those two movies. HOLMES: And also here, of course, is Aisha Harris. Here with me and Stephen today are our fellow POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR hosts, Glen Weldon. And in this episode of NPR's POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR, we're competing to find out who knows our listeners best. And who is the best Chris? I'm Stephen Thompson. We've got NSYNC versus the Backstreet Boys. ![]() In honor of the upcoming clash between same-day releases of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," we asked our listeners to weigh in on some of pop culture's most contentious matchups.
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