Songoftheday 6/27/21 - Baby I don't understand just why we can't be lovers, things are getting out of hand tryin' too much but baby we can win...

 

 

"Tearin' Up My Heart" - *NSYNC

from the album N SYNC (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #59 (after chart rule change)

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #15 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 19

Today's song of the day comes from the boy-band *NSYNC, who landed their first top-40 pop hit in America in the spring of 1998 with "I Want You Back".  The second song from the album promoted to radio was the uptempo heartbreak anthem "Tearin' Up My Heart". Written by Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin with producer Kristian Lundin, the track has members JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake trading off verses about how they can't be with the one they want, but then can't stand to be without them. Classic boy-band dick tease that gets all the teen girls (and gay guys) going, and in this case the frenetic pace is way faster than their contemporaries, upping the pulse-rate quotient. And the guys can dance (or at least get good film edits)...

Since "Tearin' Up My Heart" wasn't released as a commercially available retail "single" (most likely to get the girls to snap up the album), the song initially wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the song got enough radio spins to make it into the top 20 on the airplay component of that tally in October of 1997. And when the trade bible finally changed the rules allowing any song to place even if just by radio points in December, the song still was able to come in at #59. It also became their first to make it on to the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio format chart at #39. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Canada (#3), Austria (#4), Germany (#4), Sweden (#6), and the UK (#9), and made the top-40 in Ireland (#18), New Zealand (#19), Australia (#20), and the Netherlands (#31). The fivesome will definitely be back.

(8/10)

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I can't bring this song up without including their insane appearance on MTV's Total Request Live...

And with a band (and maybe the same screaming girls) on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno...

That same year, the group did a televised Disney concert...

 In 2001 MTV even had a show called Becoming where fans would recreate the music videos to the letter, and these guys (!?!) did "Tearin' Up My Heart"...

 

And finally here they are at their high in 2000 at Madison Square Garden...

Up tomorrow: Pop icon descends.