Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 05/03/2012 at 9:06 AM News

The Popdust Files: boy bands, jc chasez, n sync, one direction, the wanted

Asking ex-boy band members to take sides between One Direction and The Wanted is a little like asking an older actor to choose between two young leading men taking the roles he used to get. You’re not getting much, you know? You’re going to want to come off as a magnanimous mentor, to whom all the newcomers are perfectly great, and plus, you’ve got years of media training to prevent any Wanted-like candor.

So while you could read a lot into JC’s comments on the two bands (according to JC, The Wanted made a great song and a great record, while One Direction…well, they’re just having a blast, right? They’re really enjoying themselves, you know?), it’s a bit silly to. The point of this story is about an ‘N Sync reunion, or lack thereof. The conditions are right. Boy bands are actually charting again. The Backstreet Boys might be reuniting again. Max Martin tracks are still charting; they’ve yet to notbe charting. It could work! If it happened, which Chasez said in THR probably would not:

It’s just not in the cards. I’m sure that everybody in my group has been asked at one time or another — I know I get asked, I know the other guys get asked — but we’re happy with what it was and we’re happy to move on.

This is really evasive, isn’t it? There’s got to be a reason–or more than one–this isn’t happening. So let’s speculate, only partly in jest:

A revival of ‘N Sync would require Justin Timberlake to resume making music. Enough said.

NSYNCKOTBSB sounds really silly. And in this case, do you speak all the letters separately? Apostrophe or asterisk? See, this is what happens when you name your boy band ‘N Sync and don’t consider potential multi-member reunion smooshes.

Higher chance of unearthing some of the group’s, let’s say, less slick videos. The nice thing about starting with The X Factor or something similar is that your production values are really high from the start, because you’ve got those funds and those connections. ‘N Sync’s production values started out like this.