New Kids On The Block (later NKOTB) was a successful boy band of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Assembled in Boston in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr; the members consisted of brothers Jordan Knight and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood. The group went on to sell over 70 million albums worldwide, and roughly paved the way for acts like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.
New Kids on the Block | |
|---|---|
| File:NKOTB.jpg NKOTB in 1990 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Boston, USA |
| Years active | 1984–1994 |
| Members | Jordan Knight Jonathan Knight Joey McIntyre Donnie Wahlberg Danny Wood |
Early years
In the early 1980s, Maurice Starr formed R&B/Pop quintet New Edition, and guided their early success. After breaking ties with them, Starr and his business partner, Mary Alford, sought to create a white counterpart act. Auditions were held around Boston, at which some 500 teenaged boys auditioned. Among them was 15-year-old Donnie Wahlberg, whom Starr and Alford were immediately impressed by, and who would become the first member.
Donnie assisted in helping to recruit other members. Among them were his younger brother Mark and his best friend Danny Wood. Wahlberg later coaxed former classmates Jonathan and Jordan Knight, both of whom had exceptional singing voices, into joining. As the group began to take shape, Mark became disillusioned with its direction and opted to quit. Another of Donnie's neighborhood friends, Jaime Kelley, took his place. Kelley, though, would eventually be dismissed for lack of concentration and discipline. Starr replaced him with 12-year-old Joey McIntyre, whom the other guys initially resented for being the one to replace their friend. With the final line-up in place, Starr rehearsed the boys diligently and scored the group (which was being called Nynuk) a record deal at Columbia Records. The label, however, demanded Starr change the name of the group. Subsequently they settled on New Kids On The Block, after a rap song that Donnie had written for the album.
Music
New Kids On The Block
In April 1986, Columbia Records released the group's self-titled debut album. The album was almost exclusively written and produced by Maurice Starr, and featured very mid 80s sounding bubble gum pop ditties.
The first single, "Be My Girl" received minor airplay around the group's native Boston, but failed to capture nationwide attention. The albums second single, "Stop It Girl," fared even worse. Subsequently, New Kids On The Block wound up flopping. Though the boys were disappointed, Starr remained diligent and persuaded the label to allow the group to record a second album.
(Note: Though a commercial failure upon its original release, 'New Kids On The Block' would eventually go triple platinum, in response to the group's later popularity.)
Hangin' Tough
After the failure of the first album, Starr had the boys back in the studio for most of 1987 and 1988 recording their sophomore effort. The album's first single was "Please Don't Go Girl," a ballad led by Joey, released in spring 1988. Failure seemed destined to happen a second time when the song became another that went unnoticed by the listening public. As a result, Columbia Records made plans to drop the New Kids from the label. At the eleventh hour, however, a radio station in Florida began playing the song. Scoring listener approval, it soon became the most requested song on their play list. When Columbia caught wind of the positive response, they decided to keep the group on its roster and put more effort into promoting the single. National attention soon followed and it eventually climbed to #10 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart — becoming the group's first hit.
The group's second album, Hangin' Tough, was released to modest fanfare in September. They, in the meantime, began opening up for fellow teen-pop act Tiffany on her national concert tour. Hangin' Tough's sales began to steadily increase as the group's national attention slowly rose. At year's end, the album's second single "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" was released. The song was given a huge boost when MTV took notice to the group and began playing the video in regular rotation. By early 1989, it cracked the top five. The New Kids hit paydirt with their next single, "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)," which hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart in June. At this time, they were scheduled to open for Tiffany once again on a second tour, but their sudden popularity caused a reversal where Tiffany opened for them (though the two acts were technically billed as "co-headliners").
More top five singles followed into the summer and fall, including: "Hangin' Tough" and "Cover Girl." Columbia Records also released, from the groups previously-overlooked debut album, "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind)." The song went top ten on the strength of the group's popularity and effectively jump-started the sales of that album as well. NKOTB became the first 'teen' group in history to notch four Top 10 hits from one album. By year's end, Hangin' Tough had climbed to #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart and had gone 8x platinum. Meanwhile, a top ten charting holiday album, Merry, Merry Christmas, was released in the fall — spawning off another top 10 hit, "This One's For The Children" peaked at #7 and proceeds were donated to the United Cerebral Palsy, the New Kids' favorite charitable cause. In January 1990, Hangin' Tough won American Music Award for "Best Pop/Rock Album" and spent 132 weeks on the Billboard charts.
Step By Step
By early 1990, New Kids On The Block had become the most popular act in the world. In June, they followed up Hangin' Tough with Step By Step, which featured some of the songs co-written by the members themselves and sold over 3 million copies. The first single, the title track, raced to #1 on the pop chart. It was followed up with the top ten (#7) "Tonight", which extended the consecutive Top 10 singles chart run to an amazing nine records.
They were performing 250 concerts a year, with an extravagant worldwide concert tour that summer, called The Magic Summer Tour, sponsored by Coke. Thier pay-per-view special was the biggest in calbe tv history to that date, and by early 1991, thier long-form videos had amassed more than three and a half million sales, that's 70-times ITA platinum. During this time, the group became heavily merchandised and had more than 140 products that were licensed with NKOTB trademarks, which included lunch boxes, packing trunks, cuddly sleeping bags, pillow cases, T-shirts, dolls, and even a Saturday morning cartoon in their likeness. A video game based on the group was even set to be introduced for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but was never released.
The NKOTB Official Fan Club, with membership over 100,000 names, was logging some 30,000 letters a dat. 100,000 calls per week were pouring into 1-900-909-5KIDS, the Offical NKOTB Hotline, as well. In one promotion alone, 180,000 New Kids schoolbook covers were distributed to students via 80 radio stations nationwide.
The New Kids topped Forbes list of most paid entertainers of 1990 — beating out the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna. Further capitalizing on the fame, at year's end, Columbia Records released No More Games/The Remix Album — a compilation of the group's biggest hits remixed.
In the blink of an eye, however, tastes in music changed. Just as punk rock and new wave broke the disco trance in the lates 1970's, in 1990 the rage and intelligence of Jane's Addiction, Midnight Oil, Sinead O'Conner, The Cure, and others were breaking through; Nirvana, Alice in Chances, and the reast of Seattle were waiting in the wings. In 1990, the Bush-Raegan era was unraveling, Milli Vanilli was stripped of their Grammy Award, Columbia Records had a brand new youthful president in Don Lenner, and M ariah Carey was the 20-year-old new kid at the top of evert Top 40 radio playlist. Radio programmers virtually ignored the next two singles ("Let's Try Again" and 1991's "Games").
By early 1991, the group had become so over-exposed that a public and commercial backlash had formed. Sensing that it was time to give the American market a break, the group released no new material that year — but continued to tour throughout Europe and Asia. That summer, Donnie produced the debut album of his brother Mark's group Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch — which scored a #1 hit with "Good Vibrations," and a platinum album.
"If You Go Away"
As their touring itinerary was nearing its end in early 1992, the group released a new stand-alone single, "If You Go Away," which peaked at #16 on the charts. Meanwhile, as the music industry was still reeling from the Milli Vanilli lip-synching scandal, the group found themselves accused by a former engineer of not having sung all of the 1988 hit album Hangin' Tough. They immediately struck back, going on a minor publicity blitz to refute the allegation. Though they managed to successfully quell the claim, it still didn't stop them from noticing that their popularity had waned as teen-pop had now gone out of fashion. The group went into hibernation while plotting their next move.
Face The Music
Faced with the constant derision of people outside their teen market and the maturation of that base, the fact that they themselves were no longer teenagers, and that the 'type' of music that had once made them famous had faded from the lexicon — the group split off from Maurice Starr, shortened their name to NKOTB and attempted to make a comeback in January 1994 with Face The Music.
Their first release in over three years, this album had a grittier and more harder-edge sound. In spite of some positive critical reception, not surprisingly, the album sold poorly. The group went on tour to support the album, but were now faced with the reality of their time as pop music icons having peaked, as their venues were now basically clubs and theaters — as opposed to the arenas and stadiums that had been the case before. Group member Jonathan Knight, meanwhile, departed the tour early. Shortly thereafter the remaining four decided to cancel the rest of the tour, and subsequently disbanded.
Post-New Kids On The Block
After the group's demise, all of the group members married and started families, and began to venture into other avenues.
- Jonathan Knight
Left the entertainment business altogether and began a new career in real estate.
- Jordan Knight
In 1999, during a teen pop revival released a moderately successful solo album, JK, on Interscope Records. Scored a top 10 hit "Give It To You." Opened up for Nsync that summer. Continues to record and tour. Knight appeared on VH-1's The Surreal Life in 2004, and in 2005 appeared in the Five reality show Trust Me - I'm A Holiday Rep, along with British comedian Syd Little and glamour model Jodie Marsh.
- Joe McIntyre
In 1999, during a teen pop revival, released a moderately successful solo album, Stay The Same, on Columbia Records. Scored a top 20 hit with the albums title track. He has also released further albums 'Meet Joe Mac', 'One Too Many' - a live compilation album of McIntyres work and most recently '8:09'. McIntyre later became a regular on the FOX television show Boston Public and has performed in Broadway musicals including Wicked. He was a contender on the reality show Dancing with the Stars. Continues to record and tour.
- Danny Wood
Formed a Boston-based record label. Produces other acts and occasionally performs with other musicians, but largely prefers to remain out of the spotlight.
- Donnie Wahlberg
Has become the most successful since the group — following in the footsteps of his brother Mark, he too has forged a new career in acting and has been involved in movies such as Southie, The Sixth Sense, and the critically-acclaimed mini-series Band of Brothers. He starred in the short-lived police drama series Boomtown, in which he played "Detective Stevens." Donnie also had the lead role in the horror film Saw II which opened #1 at the box office in its opening weekend, October 28th, 2005, with $31 million dollars.
Non reunion
In 1999, during the teen pop revival, MTV attempted to reunite the group and get them to perform on that year's VMA's. All members were on board, except Jonathan — and subsequently the performance didn't happen. In 2003 Aamer Haleem, host of VH1's Bands Reunited, also attempted to coerce each of the members of New Kids On The Block to reunite for a one-night performance for the show. Jonathan this time agreed, as did Jordan — Joe, Donnie and Danny, however, all declined.