Spoof files no goof for record industry
(6/10/04) Leigh Phillips Digital Media Europe

...P2P users will find (top-40) songs; all the record companies have done is introduced an element of annoyance to the process...

Where spoof files have been highly effective, however, is with smaller bands and musicians. With their songs not as popular as top-40 music, there are far fewer P2P users sharing the songs to begin with, and so the percentage of tracks that turn out to be spoofs increases dramatically. There are two ways to look at this. If multi-platinum-selling artists have to buy one Bentley fewer due to file-sharing, no one is going to cry Justin Timberlake a river, but independent artists by and large live a decidedly less than bling-bling existence and so file-sharing their tunes is blatantly bad karma. The other way to look at it, as many independent artists themselves do, is that those who prefer to listen to non-mainstream music tend to use file-sharing as a way of test-driving music they haven’t encountered before, without risking their shekels on a possible dud. Furthermore, as the stats from the music industry itself show, these ‘serious’ music fans also buy far more CDs than the average sawdust-between-the-ears top-40 listener. The use of spoof files for alternative artists thus may actually do more damage to them than letting their songs be swapped freely.

The big record companies will continue to use spoof files as they are effective enough in making illegal downloading less convenient than purchasing the music. The smaller record companies, however, and smaller artists on the big labels, might want to reconsider whether spoof files are as profitable as they appear.

Backstreet's back
(6/10/04) Metro Weekly (thanks Shana!)

*NSync is officially still together and will reportedly release a group album in the next year, but its boy band nemesis looks likely to beat them to the punch. Whether any one beats down doors trying to get the next Backstreet Boys album, due out this summer after a three-year hiatus, is another matter altogether. A tour will follow release in the fall. Unlike *NSync, only one Backstreeter has released a solo album, and Nick Carter achieved about the same level of success that Chasez is finding -- which is to say, very limited. And he didn’t even have the “nipplegate” scandal as a legitimate excuse…

Let's hear it for the quiet one
(6/10/04) Telegraph.co.uk England

JC Chasez has emerged from the shadow of his former *NSync band-mate Justin Timberlake with an album that is defiantly his own. He talks to Bryony Gordon

JC Chasez was, by his own admission, the quietest member of *NSync. When the biggest-selling boy band in the world split up to pursue solo careers two years ago, one of them, Justin Timberlake, went on to become the most famous pop star on the planet. Another became a Broadway actor, a third a successful songwriter, while a fourth decided to try and take a trip into space. Chasez, by contrast, took a much less ambitious journey back home to Florida, where he decided to relax with family and friends.

"I needed a break," he says, sinking into his chair. "I wanted time to chill. I'm a mellow guy, you know?"

Earlier this year the 27-year-old Chasez finally came up with his debut solo album. Its title, Schizophrenic, hints at the eclectic sound of the record. There's techno, there's reggae. There's hip-hop, there's R&B. It has sexy club tracks such as his first single, Some Girls (Dance With Women) – a nod to the attention-seeking sapphic displays of straight, single girls – and a camp electro number called All Day Long I Dream About Sex, his new single.

"I don't know if people are expecting an *NSync record. But it's not one," he says bluntly. "It's my record."

Chasez (pronounced Sh'Say) is not the first member of a boy band to shock the record-buying public by releasing a credible solo album. He's not even the first member of *NSync to do so, what with his old band-mate Timberlake having released Justified almost a year and a half ago. It's just that some might say that Chasez's offering is, well, better than Timberlake's.

While Timberlake chose the relative safety of proven hitmakers the Neptunes and Timbaland to produce his first solo effort, Chasez took the road less travelled, enlisting the talents of his slightly off-kilter friends BT, Dallas Austin and Rockwilder. British dance stars Basement Jaxx, whose single Plug It In he appeared on, have also produced a track.

"When I decided I wanted to do a solo album," drawls the star, "my record company gave me all these names of people they wanted me to work with. And I immediately said, `No!'"

Such as who? "Come on, you can imagine," he says, raising his eyebrows in an it's-so-obvious manner. The Neptunes? The same people his good friend Timberlake worked with?

"Look, they wanted me to work with people everybody else was working with at the time. Whoever the hot guy was. And I'm not into doing what everybody else is doing. I like to try new things. That's what music is supposed to be: fun and different."

So, rather brazenly, Chasez told his record company not to contact him until he had completed the album on his own terms, with his own people. "I said to them: 'I'm gonna hang out with my friends and make tunes. If you want the record at the end you can have it, and if you don't, you don't.' They were all right about it. They knew that if they called me, it was all off."

Chasez, as you may have gathered, is not a puppet. He finds it perplexing, perhaps slightly patronising, that critics have been shocked by the variety of his musical taste. "Some people believe that if you are in pop music then you only listen to pop music, which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. They think *NSync must listen to the Backstreet Boys and the Backstreet Boys must listen to *NSync." Does he listen to the Backstreet Boys? "No! Dude, gimme a break! I have a Prodigy CD sitting next to a Common album right now in my hotel room. If it's good music I'll listen to it."
Three members of *NSync: Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake in 2002

He co-wrote every song on Schizophrenic, and sat in on everything from the production to the mixing to the mastering. He calls it his self-imposed exile. "I was completely immersed in this thing for five months."

He enjoyed working alone immensely. "When you make a record in a group, you have four other opinions to deal with, and changes are going to be made that you don't always agree on. You have to compromise, which I'm cool about. But it has been amazing to be on my own and have complete creative freedom." For this reason, he doesn't really understand why so many people have been surprised by how different Schizophrenic is. "It was never going to be the same as an *NSync album because it's only my work."

He is aware, though, that there will be inevitable comparisons to Timberlake. But he says he is not bothered by this. "He was born a superstar. He had an idea of what he wanted to do and he did it. But my whole thing is to take it one step at a time. I just wanted to make a record that I could be proud of. I would love it to be successful but…" He mmms and errs diplomatically for a few moments. "You know, at the end of the day, the main thing for me is making the album that I wanted to make."

Recently, Chasez supported Timberlake's ex-girlfriend, Britney Spears, on her British tour. Was Timberlake OK with this treachery? "Yes, yes, yes, everybody's happy, we're all friends. I know that people want to try and say otherwise but everyone in the circle has made up."

It was not his first solo stage endeavour; Chasez has just completed a club tour of America. After eight years performing to stadiums full of fans with *NSync, this was a refreshing experience for Chasez. "I got to touch people's hands again," he laughs. "I could actually see the back of the room." With the predicted success of Schizophrenic, he should perhaps enjoy it while it lasts.

The single 'All Day Long I Dream About Sex' is released on June 28 on Jive Records.

Dammit Janet update
(6/10/04) Metro Weekly

It’s been months since we’ve heard about Janet Jackson, her music or her right boob. Don’t expect that to change. First comes word that the video for her latest single, "All Nite (Don’t Stop)," was edited for the U.S., stripping out lesbian kisses and other provocations that Europeans can handle but apparently we can’t. Despite having arguably the worst year of her career, at least Jackson has managed to eek out some sales and limited airplay. JC Chasez, on the other hand, has been stripped of every opportunity. After his *NSync cohort Justin Timberlake exposed Janet’s boob on the SuperBowl, Chasez’s performance at the following week’s NFL Pro Bowl was canceled for fear he might not be at his most wholesome performing first single “Some Girls (Dance With Women).” Now he can’t get radio stations to play his ode-to-adolescence second single, “All Day Long I Dream About Sex.” And MTV is reluctant to air the video, which tamely parodies porno movies. Jackson and Timberlake are again the culprits, since the Federal Communications Commission has so “terrified” broadcast outlets through fines for indecency. “It’s getting out of hand if you can’t even talk about sex,” Chasez told Rolling Stone.