For as long as I have been a fan of British boy band One Direction, I have called Louis Tomlinson my favorite.
Everybody has one, of course: If you like Harry, you like the sophisticated leading man type; Niall, you’re into the sheepdog in a sweater; Liam, you like your men sporty and a little dumb; and if you were a Zayniac (miss you already, boo), you probably had a thing for the mysterious artist type, the kind of guy who might abandon you for three weeks but then come back with a deep tan, new ideas about tantric sex and a fresh tattoo of, like, a bearded goat playing a sitar.
But I like Louis. What are Louis’ things? He kind of plays soccer.
He smokes weed sometimes. He likes cars. In a band known for absurd hair, his is generally the strangest. Louis is kind of redundant, honestly. He’s not the best singer (that would be Zayn). He’s not the most charismatic (Harry), and he’s definitely not the most forcefully lovable (that’s Niall, of course — the human embodiment of family game night).
Instead, I appreciate Louis because he is the personification of one of my favorite pop cultural figures: the boy-band fifth wheel.
You know the fifth wheel, even if you don’t. He’s the guy standing in the back of the group whose job is to make it look like he’s just happy to be there. His solos are the shortest and his personal life is the least interesting. If you ran into him at an Arby’s, you might have a pleasant talk about Big Ten football before heading your separate ways, but you would probably never once stop to think, “Wait, is this dude part of an internationally beloved pop outfit?” His Wikipedia page is a barren, unkempt wasteland, and his cultural footprint is negligible.
The fifth wheel is a fundamentally tragic figure: He gets to fly high without ever truly feeling like he’s on top. He gets to lick the bowl without ever tasting the fully baked brownie.
But at the same time, he’s a quiet hero: He’s the normal dude hanging out in a passel of superstars. He’s you, if four of your friends were slightly better-looking and could dance and sing harmonies. He gets to live the fast life – you know, caviar, private jets, Simpsons cameos — until his leading man goes solo, then he gets to live the rest of his life in peace, free from the hassles of the paparazzi and the public eye.
In other words, he gets it all — and nothing at all.
With that in mind, not all fifth wheels are created equal. Some revel in their background roles, acting as the much-needed cement that keeps their band from spinning out of control. Some fade into obscurity without so much as a derelict Myspace page to their names. Some are members of The Wanted.
But enough talk, let’s rock. Brothers, sisters, everybody sing, because these are the Boy-Band Fifth Wheel Power Rankings:
5.) Justin Jeffre, 98 Degrees
First on the list, and we’ve already reached a conundrum: There were only four members of 98 Degrees, you say, so how could Jeffre be a fifth wheel? And to that I say: Shut up.
Even in a four-man ensemble, Jeffre is peak fifth wheel, boring and bland to the point of being virtually invisible. The Lachey brothers (Nick and Drew, obviously) had the talent, and the other guy (Jeff Timmons) had the body. What did Jeffre have? Terrible facial hair and a shit-eating smirk.
How fifth wheel was Justin Jeffre? During a 98 Degrees hiatus, he ran a campaign to become the mayor of Cincinnati and lost. He LOST. How do you lose a campaign to run Cincinnati? Shouldn’t just not wanting to run, screaming, from Cincinnati make you the person most qualified to run Cincinnati?
4.) Danny Wood, New Kids on the Block
Donnie Wahlberg is an all-American success story, Jordan and Jonathan Knight were the breakout stars and Joey McIntyre was surprisingly not terrible on CBS’ surprisingly not-terrible (now canceled) sitcom The McCarthys, which leaves Danny Wood as the default fifth wheel in the glistening Boston meat sandwich that is NKOTB.
If you can say one thing about Wood, it’s that he pops and locks the crap out of that elbow dance thing in the “Hangin’ Tough” video.
That’s probably the one thing you can say about Wood.
3.) Howie Dorough, Backstreet Boys
I always got Howie and A.J. confused, which makes them both strong contenders for the coveted fifth-wheel slot. But at least A.J. had compelling facial hair and goofy reaction shots in music videos. Howie was so devoid of personality that the “As Long As You Love Me” video had him just stand off to the side and talk on a cell phone for most of its runtime.
Howie is lame
A.J. at least got to be some kind of weird, Phantom of the Opera-style character in “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back);” Howie was just some kind of uninteresting fey vampire character two decades before being a boring fey vampire became cool.
2.) Everyone in B2K who isn’t Omarion
Outside of cranking out stone-cold slow-jam classics like “Gots Ta Be” and “Why I Love You,” the three non-Omarion dudes in B2K haven’t had much to do, before or after their band’s success peaked and faded.
Sure, the guys — Lil’ Fizz, J-Boog and Raz-B, for those of you filling out your bingo cards at home — all got starring roles in You Got Served (itself a sad runner-up to 2000s dance flicks Step Up, Stomp the Yard and even Honey), but that was because their manager, Chris Stokes, both wrote and directed it.
Though his luster has faded somewhat, Omarion is still a big deal — “Ice Box” remains a straight break-up banger, and the Jhene Aiko- and Chris Brown-assisted “Post To Be” arguably helped jumpstart the recent popularity of booty-eating. But J-Boog? Lil’ Fizz? Even in B2K’s heyday, they were really nothing more than glorified back-up dancers to the big O. In the end, B2K was really a group full of fifth wheels, just bump bump bumping along.
1.) Chris Kirkpatrick, *NSYNC
Everything about Chris Kirkpatrick screams absurd: His ridiculous Adam Duritz ’90s-guy braids; his Technicolor rec specs (which just made him look like an extra from Hackers); his junkyard night shift manager-style goatee; his penchant for sporting brightly-colored tracksuits.
In other words, short of being an American clown in some kind of mid-’80s French arthouse film, Kirkpatrick could never have been anything but a boy band fifth wheel. And what a perfect fifth wheel he was, making all of the guys of *NSYNC, even Joey Fatone, look better in comparison. Kirkpatrick’s ridiculous peacocking only served to accentuate the raw sexuality of Justin Timberlake and helped make the mock turtleneck sensibilities of Lance Bass and J.C. Chasez look downright macho in comparison.
Having Kirkpatrick in the back of the band was essentially the equivalent of projecting an MC Scat Cat hologram at every *NSYNC concert: It was just goofy and out-of-place enough to make everything else happening onstage — even the dance break to “Pop” — seem 80 percent cooler.
It’s right, then, that Kirkpatrick found his biggest success as an actual cartoon, voicing faded pop star Chip Skylark on The Fairly OddParents. It was the perfect role for a fifth wheel: You barely had to see or hear him, and he only showed up once or twice a season for 10 minutes at a time.
So long live Chris Kirkpatrick, and long live the fifth wheel. Ultimately, it doesn’t help the car get anywhere, but it sure does make the ride a lot more interesting.