NSYNC’s first new song in more than 20 years, “Better Place,” dropped Friday. It’s off the soundtrack for the forthcoming “Trolls Band Together,” the third film in the franchise.
The song combines modern production with a throwback vibe. Breakout NSYNC star Justin Timberlake takes a lead role throughout the song, as he often did in the band’s heyday. But each of the group’s singers get their own chance to shine throughout as they also deliver NSYNC’s signature harmonies. The band did an interview with “Hot Ones” that premiered earlier this month talking about the recording of the track and what they were aiming for: “nostalgic but familiar,” according to Timberlake.
NSYNC were scheduled to perform the song at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month, but those plans were iced thanks to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike earlier this month, NSYNC member Lance Bass told E! News. The group instead appeared as a unit presenting an award to Taylor Swift, but didn’t promote the song given its tie-in with the upcoming “Trolls” movie.
Notably, while the audio for “Better Place” dropped on Timberlake and NSYNC’s YouTube pages, the music video only appears on the RCA Records and Peacock Kids channels. This may be part of the ongoing strikes, with the individual artists avoiding being part of the promotion of the film. There’s also no full music video, as the video released is a lyric video utilizing footage from “Trolls Band Together.”
Timberlake has played the lead character in the “Trolls” films since the first movie’s release in 2016. He’s also contributed as a solo artist to the soundtracks for each, including the hugely successful “Can’t Stop The Feeling” from the first “Trolls.”
The film’s trailer that released earlier this month shows how deeply the boy band theme comes into the film, including a line name-dropping other major male vocal groups as we see a flashback to the younger version of Timberlake’s Branch.
His brothers tell him, “Branch, we’re out of sync. We’ve gone from boys to men, and now there’s only one direction for us to go — the backstreets.”
We see that Branch was once part of an all-brother boy band known as BroZone. The trailer also features references to Timberlake’s infamous boy band-era hair choices, including his tiny curls and frosted tips. The other members of BroZone aren’t played by NSYNC in their speaking voices, though beyond “Better Place,” we also hear a mix of NSYNC classic “I Want You Back” in the trailer’s background.
Timberlake’s contribution to the “Trolls World Tour” soundtrack was “The Other Side,” a duet with SZA. It proved significantly less popular than “Can’t Stop The Feeling.” Of course, timing played a big role in that song having trouble getting traction — it came out during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic on Feb. 26, 2020, while the “Trolls” sequel came out amid lockdowns in April 2020.
Timberlake also recently released a collaboration with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado, “Keep Going Up,” and is reportedly releasing both a new album and heading out on tour in 2024. His last album, “Man of the Woods,” came out in 2018. Other members of the group continue teasing a larger potential reunion, but it sounds like that’s going to need to wait for the end of the strike and Timberlake’s promotion of his next album.
