No Strings Attached ('N Sync Album) - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

While the legal suit was underway, 'N Sync kept on recording songs for the album. Despite the band switching label, it still retained its manager and mentor from Trans Continental, Johnny Wright. With Jive, the band was introduced American record producer Teddy Riley, who would remake Johnny Kemp's 1988 "Just Got Paid" with them, and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, who produced "It Makes Me Ill" for the album. One of the recording sessions for the album took place in a tiny studio in Burbank. The ballad "That's When I'll Stop Loving You" written by Dianne Warren was recorded there under the production of French-born producer Guy Roche.

Accordingly, 'N Sync insisted that they choose producers and songwriters for the album. On No Strings Attached, the band commissioned Swedish and German songwriters and producers, who had produced songs for the Backstreet Boys. Aside from getting the album number one on the chart, they wanted to distinguish their music that had been attuned to the styles of the Backstreet Boys, having shared the same producers. For that direction, they told the Swedish team of Cheiron Studios to change the band's tune. Wright recalls, "We basically told them, 'We like your concepts for songs and we love the way you produce. But you're gonna have to do it in a different way so that it conforms to how we want our sound to be." This direction resulted to harder-edge songs such as "Bye Bye Bye", which production was handled by the Swedish team. Max Martin, who also came from Cheiron and known for producing songs for 'N Sync's label mates, also contributed to the album by co-writing and producing the single "It's Gonna Be Me".

Despite the new direction the band had wanted to take, early recording process found some of the producers and writers submitting tracks which were "in the vein of 'N Sync's earlier, softer sound". The band thought that if the collaborators could not produce what they were looking for, they would find it themselves. This resulted to some of the band's members contributing to a number of tracks which made it to the album. On specific songs, songwriter and producer Veit Renn collaborated with band's member JC Chasez, who co-authored the album's title track and three other songs. Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake helped pen and produce a song called "I'll Be Good for You", which also made it to the album's track listing.