98º - The Way You Want Me To

2001

98º - The Way You Want Me To (2001) Director: Wayne Isham Era: Post-Millennial Teen Pop Peak (2000–2001) - Late phase of the boy band era, coinciding with the commercial wind-down of the genre's mainstream dominance and the release of 98°'s album Revelation High curatorial value as a late-cycle artifact of the American boy band genre's commercial peak, directed by an industry legend at the height of his pop-video influence. The quantitative metrics (359 cuts, 0.60s avg shot length) provide concrete data for editing-pace research in the TRL era. As one of 98°'s final pre-hiatus singles, the video also documents the visual language the group employed as they transitioned out of the boy band moment. Context: Released during the final commercial peak and incipient decline of the American boy band phenomenon, 'The Way You Want Me To' represents 98°'s position as the most R&B-credible of the major late-1990s boy bands, signed to Motown and distinguished by self-written material. The video's warm, high-energy aesthetic reflects the TRL-era MTV ecosystem where rapid visual engagement was paramount. By 2001, the genre was beginning its retreat from cultural dominance, making this video a late-period artifact of a movement defined by choreographed performance polish and aspirational masculinity. Director notes: Directed for production company A Band Apart. The video was released in May 2001 (US) per IMDb, though the parent album Revelation was released September 2000 and IMVDb lists the video year as 2000, suggesting production in late 2000 with a 2001 single release window. The rapid-cut, performance-focused style is consistent with Isham's established pop video aesthetic of the period, which he deployed contemporaneously on boy band videos for *NSYNC ('Bye Bye Bye,' 'It's Gonna Be Me') and Backstreet Boys ('I Want It That Way').