Over 600 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of Reasons *NSYNC Was Always Better Than The Backstreet Boys

Vote up all the reasons why you’ll be telling BSB bye bye bye.

Sometimes, it pays off to hear out somebody with opposing views from your own. Politicians try to reach across the aisle and forget their differences in order to move the country forward. Impatient bosses listen to a new hire’s bold idea. These acts of patience and understanding usually pay off… unless someone is debating *NSYNC versus BSB. We all know *NSYNC is the superior boy band, and if anyone tries to argue differently, tell them “Bye, Bye, Bye!”

*NSYNC is better than Backstreet Boys. Stop – no matter what you say in defense of Nick Carter and crew, you are wrong. It makes me ill to think there are still folks out there who don’t understand why *NSYNC is the best, but if you really need convincing, read on. You will come to see the truth, this I promise you. 

*NSYNC Had As Many Top Ten Hits As BSB Even Though They Only Released Three Albums

Photo: Jive / Amazon

Even with three times the albums, the Backstreet Boys didn’t really beat the pants of *NSYNC for the number of singles that charted, did they?

In fact, they both had the same number of songs crack the top 10 in the Billboard Hot 100. Backstreet Boys’s six top ten singles sounds pretty great, right? But that’s three less hits than they had albums. *NSYNC’s six top 10 singles means they never had an album that didn’t reach those lofty heights. They also had a number one hit in “It’s Gonna Be Me,” an achievement Backstreet Boys never matched.

Maybe the Backstreet Boys should have quit playing games with the charts?

*NSYNC Has Two Of The Fastest Selling Albums Of All Time

Photo: Jive / Amazon

Sophomore slump? What sophomore slump?

*NSYNC’s second album, No Strings Attached, set a record for first week sales that didn’t just exceed the previous record, it more than doubled it. What was the previous title holder? Backstreet Boys Millennium. Bye bye bye, indeed.

*NSYNC managed to hold onto their record for a whopping fifteen years until Adele shattered it in 2015. During all that time, guess what musical act came the closest to beating them? *NSYNC’s follow up to No Strings Attached, the aptly named Celebrity, which hit the market in 2001.

That’s almost a decade and a half that *NSYNC held the top two spots for fastest albums sales. I guess Backstreet Boys should have spent a little more time on their albums.

*NSYNC Created Three Rock-Solid Pop Albums While Backstreet Boys Churned Out Filler

Photo: RCA Records / Amazon

If we’re going to talk about which of two bands is better, we need to focus on quality over quantity.

Backstreet Boys may have given us a deeper discography with eight studio albums and a live compilation, but *NSYNC skipped the churn and cut three well-crafted albums full of “pop perfection,” as Billboard pop editor Erin Strecker put it.

*NSYNC embodied the showbiz maxim: always leave them wanting more.

Backstreet Boys Couldn’t Launch A Career Like Justin Timberlake’s

Photo: Antonio García Rodríguez / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

You can’t really compare the solo careers of each member of both bands, because Justin Timberlake blows them all out of the water.

To be fair, there’s some more name recognition on both sides. People might know who Nick Carter and Lance Bass are, but they’re not household names the way Justin Timberlake is. Nobody else from either band springboarded quite as high as Justin Timberlake, who has collaborated with the Black Eyed Peas, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, and even Beyoncé.

Nick Carter might be a reality-show mainstay, but Justin Timberlake is Oscar-nominated!

*NSYNC Can Tell You What Month Comes Next

Video: YouTube

There are some internet memes that are so regular you could set a calendar by them. Every Mean Girls fan remembers October 3rd is the day that Aaron asked Cady what day it was. (It was October 3rd.) Budding Jedi everywhere know that May the 4th will always be with them. And even people who barely remember Miss Congeniality know that April 25th is the perfect date: all you need is a light jacket!

But do you know what happens six days after that perfect date?

If you don’t, Justin Timberlake can tell you.

That’s right… IT’S GONNA BE MAY!

A Surprise *NSYNC Reunion Broke The Internet’s Mind

Video: YouTube

When Justin Timberlake performed at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2013, he was joined by his former bandmates for a medley of their signature songs “Girlfriend” and “Bye Bye Bye”. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, as speculation had been rampant, but it hadn’t been announced in advance, either.

Still, even just the prospect of an *NSYNC reunion had been enough to work up a frenzy of media coverage and Twitter snark. You might imagine that was enough for *NSYNC fandom to get it out of their system, but history repeated itself in 2018 when Timberlake was scheduled to perform a certain halftime show for the first time since a certain incident.

Though it’s been denied, the speculation of another *NSYNC reunion began before the deal was even finalized.

That’s what I call lasting impact.

Backstreet Boys Are Just Too Generic

Photo: Krystaleen / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Some might argue that the Backstreet Boys are THE ’90s boy band and postulate we wouldn’t have *NSYNC without them. You could say they have a point; the Backstreet Boys are pretty much the basic exemplar of the archetype.

And that’s exactly the problem.

Are they original?
Yeah.
Are they the only one?
Uh… no. They’re not the only one we need, either.

Backstreet Boys made the mold. They never, ever broke it.

Backstreet Boys Have To Remind You Mid-Song That You Are Listening To The Backstreet boys

Photo: Backstreet Boys Vevo / YouTube

Quick! Do the Backstreet Boys have a more memorable hit than “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”? It would be hard to argue otherwise. If you’re not a super fan of the band, you might not be able to place any of their other singles. But when they tell everybody to rock your body, you know who it is that’s telling you.

Why? Because they tell you.

C’mon, boys. Singing songs about yourself worked fine for Josie and the Pussycats when it was the 1960s and they were cartoons. These days if you have to tell us that Backstreet’s back, we probably didn’t notice you were gone. All right?

Justin Timberlake’s Appearances On ‘SNL’ Are Better Than Any Of BSB’s ‘SNL’ Performances

Video: YouTube

*NSYNC and Backstreet Boys have both performed on Saturday Night Live, but *NSYNC member Justin Timberlake is a member of the semi-prestigious Five Timers Club for actually hosting the show five times.

In addition to performing the most memorable scene about a body part in a box since Seven, Timberlake is known for a recurring sketch where he portrays a hyper-competitive street performer who brings in the business for a bevy of suspiciously similarly named concerns, including Omeletteville, Homelessville, Wrappinville, Veganville, Liquorville, and Plasticville.

In comparison, the Backstreet Boys were once featured in an animated TV Funhouse short that didn’t even have the boys playing themselves.

Bring it on down to *NSYNCville!

Lance Bass Is Not Afraid To Reach For The Stars

Photo: NASA / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

After *NSYNC broke up, Lance Bass started a quest to travel to outer space. In 2002, he participated in astronaut training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia and negotiated for a seat on a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. To make his dream a reality, the bass singer endured a rigorous training regimen, invasive medical exams, and an atmosphere of dangerous homophobia.

The deal ultimately fell apart, but even after all he’s been through, Bass has not given up the dream. He told a caller on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, “I’m very connected with the space community still, privately and NASA. Yes, I still plan to go. I do.”

Lance Bass Is A Bona Fide Gay Icon

Photo: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas / flickr / CC-BY-ND 2.0

Having a gay following is not unusual for a group of fit, photogenic guys who can sing in harmony and pull a few dance moves.

*NSYNC’s Lance Bass is a gay icon for another reason than just being a pretty face: he’s an out and proud gay man who has spoken out against discriminatory laws and homophobic restrictions on blood donations, and even thrown an inclusive prom for a lesbian high school student.

Justin Timberlake Single-Handedly Inspired YouTube

Photo: Rogelio A. Galaviz C. / flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0

No, seriously.

In February of 2004, Justin Timberlake made a surprise guest appearance in the halftime show for the Superbowl where he sang a duet with Janet Jackson. At the song’s end, he reached over and (in)famously tore a piece of her costume, revealing part of her breast and a piece of jewelry over her nipple.

What’s this got to do with YouTube? According to founder Jawed Karim, the idea for the video platform came about due to his frustration over how hard it was to find a copy of nip slip vid clip online. Everybody was talking about it, but the internet didn’t yet have a centralized site for uploading, viewing, and sharing videos.

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the term “boob tube,” doesn’t it?