Despite the prevailing stereotype of students hitting the books with indie or alternative rock, punk and the occasional 1980s retread playing in the background, college kids dig bubble-gum pop.
A springtime jaunt around the residence halls, greek houses and apartment complexes in the University neighborhoods will reveal all the Total Request Live staples from Britney Spears to Hanson blasting from open windows.
But on Tuesday, when the long-awaited second-coming of *NSYNC arrived and the new album, “Celebrity,” hit the shelves, few college students rushed to the campus independent record stores to indulge their pop pleasures.
Instead, they slunk toward chain stores and mall shops, but with caution and under a cloak of anonymity.
At Face the Music on 13th Avenue, nobody camped outside waiting hungrily for the doors to open so they could get their hands on the 13 Jeep-bumpin’ tracks. Emily Singleton, a worker at the store, said the atmosphere was, at most, anti-climatic.
“I haven’t thought about it much,” she said.
Singleton said her store ordered 20 copies of the album, compared with about 140 for “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” from Radiohead, a current pop icon dominating the college music scene much like *NSYNC rules the TRL charts and junior high schoolers’ hearts.
Farther down 13th Avenue at House of Records, Greg Sutherland said he ordered two copies of the album and one on tape, but by early afternoon Tuesday, none of the copies had been snatched up.
Sutherland added that he expected to unload his copies, but probably not to the college crowd that comes in looking for local bands, punk rock and classic albums on vinyl.
“Moms come in here with kids,” he said. “They still seem to sell.”
The situation was even more bleak for collegiate *NSYNC fans who turn to Stylus Grooves for their house, techno and DJ-ready beats. Ben Colgan said his store didn’t stock a single copy on Tuesday, let alone a copy on vinyl for a DJ to spin at summer college parties.
“We wouldn’t carry an *NSYNC album,” he said. “Unless it happens to be one hell of a bad-ass remix.”
Not afraid to show their *NSYNC pride, Katie Victorson, Rachel Burge and Mara McCornack, all age 10, stand by their men. All three girls think that Lance — the one in the middle — is the best.
Students spending their summer in the University neighborhoods seemed unmotivated to make their way to a nearby store and get the new album. Freeman Corbin spent most of Tuesday afternoon basking in the sun on the porch of his house on 13th Avenue, even though his abode is sandwiched between House of Records and Face the Music, where the part-time DJ said he gets most of his music.
He had a simple reason for his lack of movement: “*NSYNC sucks, from my perspective,” he said.
But Sybylla Lindert, who works at the Sam Goody store in the Valley River Center, said some people who looked college-aged demonstrated a perspective opposite to Corbin’s and snagged a new album Tuesday.
As 7-to 11-year-olds grabbed copies and swooned over the large cardboard cut-outs of the group in the store, Lindert said the number of college students who ventured out for the CD had been low.
“It’s mostly females who giggle a lot and wear sandals,” she said.
Even though Face the Music had sold 11 copies by the end of the afternoon, Singleton said most had been purchased by younger girls with temporary University identification cards, showing they were in the residence halls for camps or other activities. The first copy, she said, went to a woman in her mid-40s.
Singleton had a theory for why the college *NSYNC loyalists — who she said do exist — hadn’t come out Tuesday: Many were probably sorority girls who had gone home for the summer.
Student Sen. Dave Sanchez said one of his friends had already bought the album, so perhaps those who did emerge to make their purchase made a hasty retreat to their homes to hook up the headphones and kill the day in pure pop bliss.