It's that time of the year once more and *NSYNC's pop hit single "It's Gonna Be Me" is hitting the trends again, thanks to the viral meme that comes around every spring. This time, the disbanded boyband wittingly put a different twist to the annual "joke" - they changed the title officially on streaming platforms Apple Music and Spotify to "It's Gonna Be May." See it for yourself on the Spotify playlist below -
The yearly meme came out as a result of the pronunciation of Justin Timberlake, *NSYNC's former lead vocalist, of the word "me" that sounded more like "may." The joke caught on even after the initial release of the single on June 13, 2000. Two decades after, the group still found it more amusing than annoying, and in the quarantine era, even updated it to its "new title" as their way of pitching in more fun. The meme usually comes out towards the last week of April. Timberlake, on his Twitter, further added flame to the joke by posting the meme that showed him wearing the trending outfit of the times - the in-demand face mask. See it here -
Since 2012, animated GIFs and memes started popping out with Timberlake mouthing the word "me" but with the misheard caption of "may." The fun memes of "It's Gonna Be May" appear yearly in social media. They pop out during the end week of April and a few days before May begins. This year, the memes took on another spin as a reaction to the ongoing required quarantine. Before April started, a photo meme of the lead vocalist has begun circulating on social media. The captioned poem states: "Roses are red, April is grey, the next time you leave your house," with the meme ending with "It's gonna be May." The single "It's Gonna Be Me" came from *NSYNC's sophomore album "No Strings Attached." It topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart on July 29, 2000, and remained on board for 25 weeks. The official music video has to date more than 115 million views on YouTube. Relive the song that became a famous meme - The album itself peaked at No. 1 on Billboard 200 album chart on April 8, 2000. It stayed on the chart for 85 weeks. From the same album, two more hits landed among the Top 10 with "Bye Bye Bye" (ranked No. 4 on April 15, 2000) and "This I Promise You" (peaked at No. 5 on December 2, 2000). Justin Timberlake, in a radio interview with 95-106 Capital FM in June 2016, admitted that Max Martin, the co-writer of "It's Gonna Be Me," asked him to pronounce the word differently. "In my defense," he said, "Max Martin made me sing "me" that way." Timberlake gave the full credit and blame to the writer. He was grateful to Martin and said, "now we have the meme of the century." The now solo artist who is 39 thought that Martin "wanted me to sound like I was from Tennessee." Timberlake was only 19 years old during the time of recording of the hit song.
Look at track No. 2 with the new title "It's Gonna Be May"
Spring Summer 2020. Thanks for this, Internet. pic.twitter.com/I3mdWPTjiN — Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) May 1, 2020
