’N Sync mingle on the set of the “Mickey Mouse Club” in ’95. The Backstreet Boys release their self-titled debut in 1996.

The world also met Spice Girls that year with their hit single “Wannabe.”

And who can forget those three MMMboppin’ Hanson brothers?

A blond-haired beauty named Britney Spears hit the scene in a schoolgirl outfit, and the deal is sealed.

Bam. A new era dawns. Goodbye grungy, angst-ridden rockers. Hello again pop. Enter Aguilera, Simpson, Destiny’s Child and various other marketable pop entities. There was no looking back.

But will Britney’s fame expire in the near future? Will the slew of boy band copycats keep the trend going? Can ’N Sync keep its strings attached?

’N Sync’s 2000 album, “No Strings Attached” had a half-dozen million-plus sales weeks in 2000, while in 2001, the group only had one million-plus week with “Celebrity.”

“‘Celebrity’ faded a lot faster than ‘Strings’ did,” said Geoff Mayfield, the director of charts for Billboard magazine. “Britney’s opener sold 70,000 units, almost half of what she did earlier with ‘Oops...’ and then the Backstreet Boys’ greatest hits certainly didn’t have those kind of numbers.”

However, Mayfield said it’s hard to judge if the sales of the Backstreet Boys’ “The Hits: Chapter One” is a good indicator of the group’s staying power.

“It is a greatest hits record for a band who only had three albums, and there was not much time to breath between the third and that album,” he said.

Matt Hendrickson is the music editor of Teen People magazine. He believes the teen pop trend will continue to dwindle as the year progresses.

“It already started in 2001,” he said. “Linkin Park was the bestselling record of the year and I think kids now are looking for something that is more real and not something so prepackaged.

“’N Sync and Britney are essentially marketing entities versus artists.”

Larger than life

Michael Buono, a mechanical engineering sophomore, said image is probably the main attraction people have to pop.

“The kids in their preteens can’t go around saying how great-looking Mick Jagger is,” he said. “Part of it is the appearance, the rest of it is the popularity of the music - if everyone else likes it, the kids feel like they have to.”

Leah Swartz was a sophomore in high school when Spears’ first video “Baby One More Time” graced her television in 1998.

“When I first saw the video I was kind of thinking ‘What the hell is this?’” the fisheries and wildlife freshman said. But Swartz admits she recently came to terms with her enjoyment of Spears’ music.

“Her music is just happy music - it would be fun as hell to be her.”

Molly Messinger is a telecommunication freshman. She said when the pop music trend exploded while she was in high school, she initially enjoyed it.

“But when everyone came out, it all sounded monotonous and I didn’t like it,” she said. “There was not a lot of variety.”

Other students, like telecommunication sophomore Christin McLellen, didn’t like the trend from the start.

“I don’t own any of their CDs and I wouldn’t buy any,” she said. “It’s hard to consider any of them musicians when they don’t write their own songs - Britney is into her body more than her music, more than anything.”

Not a girl, not yet a woman

Mayfield said it’s not just the fans who are growing up, but the artists as well.

“Music they thought was cool last week isn’t as cool this week,” he said. “There’s no reason to believe that any of these will be able to avoid that fate.”

“A lot of kids who got into the Backstreet Boys a few years ago are growing up now and, naturally, they’re looking for something new,” said Jason Fine, senior editor of Rolling Stone magazine. “And the performers aren’t disappearing, they’re growing up too and trying new sounds, marketing themselves differently.”

Hendrickson said the trend is a recurring situation in the music industry, citing how Nirvana came along after the late ’80s and blew everybody out of the water.

“Kids are getting older and they’re looking for something more substantive,” he said. “I don’t think ’N Sync and the Britneys of the world are regenerating their fan base like they need to do to stick around.”

Buono said he liked Spears’ more when she was “the more cute-looking Britney Spears,” he said. “Her image now is a bit different and not particular of my taste anymore.”

Hendrickson said artists like Spears have fan bases that are much more fickle.

“She can’t count on them and that especially holds true for ’N Sync,” he said. “Britney has the opportunity to transcend her market and become a certified star in music and film but with ’N Sync, I just don’t see it.

“But Justin (Timberlake) is a different cat - if he goes solo, he’s got some magnitude there too.”

Mayfield said the longevity of an artists’ reputation depends on the amount of shelf life he or she has established.

“With ’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, they have already put together longer shelf lives than teen acts of the past if you think back to Kris Kross, Vanilla Ice or the New Kids On The Block especially,” he said.

“For Britney and these boy bands to have put together shelf lives as long as they have is impressive.”

Messinger agrees that the established teen pop groups will be around for a while, but knockoffs like O-Town and Aaron Carter may not have the staying power.

“It’s starting to fade out, and the new pop groups who are coming out now aren’t staying very long,” he said.

Baby bye bye bye

Fine said the number of rock bands entering the charts has an effect on the lack of interest, too. Bands like Linkin Park, Incubus, Creed and Weezer released successful records in 2002.

“Of the top 10 records, you’ll see five or six rock band’s,” he said. “That’s something different so certainly rock bands are starting to get a little more attention and teen pop, a little less.

“That trend will probably snowball, and companies will sell less packaged pop groups and more rock groups in the coming time.”

Hendrickson said Spears’ new record isn’t in the top 20 right now and it’s been out for two months already.

“Bands like Creed and Linkin Park are selling through the roof,” he said.

Hendrickson said Sept. 11 had an effect on the tastes of young consumers as well.

“That was a real wake-up call for teenagers,” he said. “Kids have realized they’re not immune and that they’re not indestructible.

“That translates into finding something more real and with feeling so they look for artists who have more to say than ‘bye bye bye’ and artists who don’t rely on Swedish hit-making machines to write their material.”

Hendrickson sees the slow dispersal of teen bubblegum pop and the future of the industry as an exciting time for music.

“It’s more of a complete picture in the musical spectrum,” he said. “There’s everything from good hip-hop to rock acts to good singer/songwriters emerging - it’s not dominated solely by the Britneys of the world.”