foxmonkey | JC : nytimes.com Irving Plaza review.

Here, at the nytimes.com. Could have been better, but could have been much, much worse.

Rockin' and Leerin', With 'N Sync Style
By JON PARELES
Published: December 22, 2003

First comes the Mickey Mouse Club. Then comes a lucrative stint in coy teeny-pop. And then, for Britney Spears and now JC Chasez from 'N Sync, comes a full-time fixation on sex. Apparently that's all that grown-ups do.

At Irving Plaza on Friday night, Mr. Chasez was surrounded by bumping, grinding female dancers as he started his set with "All Day Long I Dream About Sex" (not the same as Korn's "A.D.I.D.A.S."), pointing a finger at the crowd as he added, "With you!"

Mr. Chasez has made a solo album that is due for release on Jan. 27. The name 'N Sync was never mentioned during his sold-out show, but when he said his four "best friends" had encouraged him to make the album, there were shrieks from the audience. Young girls made up at least 90 percent of the crowd, and they screamed again when Mr. Chasez sang a bit of 'N Sync's "Game Is Over."

Within 'N Sync, Mr. Chasez was the member who dared to leer. On the group's album "No Strings Attached" he wrote "Digital Get Down," a song about videophone sex. Now he's presenting himself as the guy who'll "love you all night strong," though it might just be a one-night stand. The fans didn't mind a bit as Mr. Chasez traded 'N Sync's blandishments for come-ons and the dancers caressed themselves or dropped to their knees in front of Mr. Chasez.

His album is called "Schizophrenic" (Jive) because on it he doesn't just sing the pop-R&B and ballads that made 'N Sync's fortune. He also intends to rock. Still, it's rock in 'N Sync style: fully choreographed, partly prerecorded and about as spontaneous as a state dinner.

"Y'all are just about to find out how crazy I am," he promised, and the stage set had cushions on the wall to suggest a padded cell. If he was crazy, it was obsessive-compulsive disorder: everything had its place. Even the stage patter that was supposed to establish him as an individual personality was a compendium of clichés, as he affirmed that making his album was a journey and a roller coaster.

Yet Mr. Chasez is a trouper, and slick as he is, he put his songs across. Much of his new material fixates on the early 1980's, the dawn of the music-video era that nurtured boy bands like 'N Sync. The songs dipped into electro, new wave and pop: Eurythmics in "Come to Me," the B-52's in "All Day Long I Dream About Sex," Michael Jackson in "She Got Me." Mr. Chasez is most retro in his rock; like a promising apprentice, he directly mimicked Robert Plant and Prince (singing Prince's "Let's Go Crazy"), and whipped up a fervor to rival early Sting in his Police imitation, "Everything You Want."

But Mr. Chasez's better songs stopped looking back. There were lovelorn breakup ballads, like "Dear Goodbye," that didn't stray too far from 'N Sync. And given a lean, syncopated beat like the ones in "Some Girls (Dance With Women), "One Night Stand," "Shake It" (which was written by Basement Jaxx) or "Blowin' Me Up (With Her Love)," Mr. Chasez was perfectly at home in the disco-lighted fantasy he was so determined to construct. While he worked through robotic dance routines, he kept flashing a boyish grin, as if insisting there was a regular guy within the pop star.