Justin Timberlake sets record straight on weird ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ pronunciation
Justin Timberlake has explained why he sang the chorus of the popular *NSYNC song ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ bizarrely.
In their 2000 hit, Timberlake sings “It’s gonna be me”, with the last word pronounced as “may”. This part of the ‘No Strings Attached’ single has gone viral and been memeified on social media multiple times over the years.
During a recent Hot Ones interview with the reunited boyband, host Sean Evans asked *NSYNC how they felt about the song’s resurgence and where the weird inflection came from.
Timberlake revealed that he sang the chorus as such at request from Swedish songwriter-producer Max Martin. “I don’t remember if the specifics were a ‘meaner me,’ but I sang, ‘It’s gonna be me,’ and he was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no.’ He was like, ‘It’s may,” he told Evans.
JC Chasez jumped in, adding, “You also remember their Swedish accents? And they had done a demo of it, and they were like, ‘It’s like this!’” The rest of *NSYNC nodded in agreement before Timberlake continued.
“You know what’s funny?” he said. “Specifically to Max Martin, the parts of their English that were broken actually made them catchier songwriters because they would put words [in] a way that almost didn’t make sense. But when you sang them, they were more memorable, right? And yes, it was a specific note that I got, and I was just like, ‘This guy is crazy.’ But yes, it was a specific note and I did it the way that he requested and that’s what made the record.”
Earlier this month, *NSYNC reunited and will release ‘Better Place’, their first single in 20 years, next Friday (September 29). Timberlake told Evans that they all wanted their comeback single to feel both modern and nostalgic.
He explained: “I think the trick was to try to capture both, for our fans that have been with us for so long to give them something that felt nostalgic but familiar, and then see if we could take that sound and make it feel modern.”
Rumours of *NSYNC’s return started when the trailer for Trolls Band Together was released on September 4, as Timberlake’s character needs to reconnect with his brothers to reform their band and save the day. The band then hinted at the announcement on social media by lip-syncing to a classic scene from Friends, in which Joey and Rachel discuss a secret within the group. This will be their first release since their 2003 album ‘Celebrity’.
At this year’s MTV VMAs, the group presented Taylor Swift with the Best Pop award for her ‘Anti-Hero’. In receiving the award, Swift said to *NSYNC: “You guys are pop personified, so to receive this from your golden pop hands is… it’s too much.”
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