The brouhaha over the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync's label troubles, explained

News that the Backstreet Boys are threatening to bolt Jive Records, reportedly because the label is wooing fellow pop idols 'N Sync (the boy wonders who themselves recently and abruptly announced their exit from RCA Records, much to that label's dismay), may have some fans wondering if anybody in the music business honors their contract these days.

Public contract disputes are as old as the business itself, and artists often turn up the heat in order to renegotiate new financial terms for themselves. But the unfolding Jive/`N Sync/Backstreet Boys opera even has some inside the business shaking their heads in disbelief.

The chronology, if nothing else, is simple. Two weeks ago Jive announced that it had signed `N Sync, who were disgruntled with their RCA contract. Executives at RCA's parent company BMG were furious over the move. "On a scale of one to ten, it was a ten," says one source. BMG insisted `N Sync was still under contract and was not free to simply up and leave for a new, more lucrative home. "'N Sync is a BMG act and we will protect and enforce our rights vigorously," said a company spokesperson.

Jumping labels in the middle of the game, and before fulfilling a contract, is a highly unusual move, even by music industry standards. "We're all trying to find out under what basis [`N Sync's] trying to end their contract," says one industry attorney, who is simply an observer of this dispute. "It's like the Boston Red Sox signing [Yankee outfielder] Bernie Williams and the Yankees insisting Bernie's still on their team. But contracts can be read many different ways, that's why we have the courts."

Making matters even more complex is the fact BMG owns twenty percent of Jive, thereby turning the dispute into an unpleasant family feud.

Now comes word that the Backstreet Boys camp is looking to use that internal turmoil to their advantage, complaining about Jive signing 'N Sync (whom the BSB consider to be pale imitators), as well as BSB members not seeing enough money from their multi-platinum sales. Suddenly, it is Jive issuing statements insisting its top-selling teen act, the Backstreet Boys, are still signed to the label.

In many ways the Backstreet Boys' bickering is much more common: a best-selling act going public with its complaints about its label deal and threatening to leave, in hopes of re-upping for more money. (Note how the highly publicized suit between Beck and his label Geffen, filed back in April, was quietly settled earlier this week, as these types of money skirmishes almost always are.) "Everybody's seen that before," says the attorney.

What makes this scenario so compelling though (besides the intense animosity between `N Sync and the Backstreet Boys), are the extraordinary sales numbers involved. In the last two years `N Sync and the Backstreet Boys have sold a combined 21 millions albums, in America alone. For the groups' two record companies, those sales represent a profit of more than $100 million. Those sorts of money-making properties come around once every few decades and to lose one prematurely would be devastating to each record company.

But those are the headaches that accompany mega-success, says one source. The bottom line: "It all stems from people wanting more money."

ERIC BOEHLERT

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