Well I don't really care about the chart positions outside of the US. In the US, they both have just a small handful of top 10 hits. Obviously, a few of 1D's are purely a result of massive debuts, but that still doesn't really convince me that the BSB or NSYNC top 10s were a different class of hit. At least through experience, I'm pretty sure my parents and friends' parents only knew about them because they bought their kids the CDs.
I mainly just question whether or not 1D will be the equivalent of BSB and NSYNC to the youth of today in another decade.
Back then Billboard Hot 100 was not a good measurement of popularity
Well it was definitely the BSB's weakest market, they were far more popular in Europe and Asia. So what do you think is 1D's strongest market?
UK or maybe Australia, idk their statistics that much but they are much bigger in Europe than in the US that's for sure, they have only 1 big hit in USA
lol, regarding Usher and pop radio - he does have 6 songs that peaked at #2....it's just unlucky timing.
One Direction aren't as big as the BSB (or NSYNC in the US) b/c they don't have the hit singles. Simple as that. And their album sales also don't match up, even when you adjust for the market and see where the albums rank in respect to other artists. NSYNC and the BSB constantly were #1/#2 for their years. One Direction aren't.
They are the closest thing we've had to a big, successful boy band since though.
While this is semi true (they aren't "forgotten"), the BSB and NKOTB are still able to tour. That joint tour they did was legitimately successful (bigger than Kety) and even alone they still sell out decent sized venues everywhere.
Of course they're not legends or anything like that but they definitely left a big enough mark to have that touring ability almost 20 years later.
Outside of the people who loved their music, I would stand by what I said and say they are forgotten, especially NKOTB. People might know them when you bring them up and their nostalgia are still crazy supporters hence their ticket sales, but they aren't highly-regarded and brought up frequently unless you're speaking in nostalgic terms and to say they were so huge, their airplay numbers and catalog sales are poor. They are forgotten.
Usher has 7 Top 2's on Pop, 12 #1's on Urban, and 11 #1's on Rhythmic so nothing is cringeworthy about his radio stats when no other male in memory has that much crossover power.
Taylor's album is gonna be embarrassing. It'll be very interesting to see if this is the album where she finally takes a hit in album sales. Red started off massively but it didn't have nearly as much longevity as any of the previous albums despite having a lot more mainstream success.
