“How it all started and restarted”

New Kids On The Block — five now fully-grown men who forever defined what the modern boy band would look and sound like — are back together for the very first time in nearly a decade and a half, and currently hard at work on their first new album since 1994. That still untitled album should be released sometime this summer, preceded by the New Kid’s first new single since the Nineties, and followed in the fall by an already hotly anticipated international concert tour. In the late Eighties and early Nineties, while still teenagers themselves, New Kids on the Block became a phenomenon, selling over 70 million albums – including the back-to-back international number one efforts, 1988’s Hangin’ Tough and 1990’s Step By Step — and a series of crossover smash R&B, pop hits like “You Got It (The Right Stuff),”  “Cover Girl,” “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time),” “Hangin’ Tough,” “I’ll Be Loving You,” “Step By Step” and “Tonight” — as well as countless number of concert tickets, t-shirts and even lunchboxes to primarily female kids around the world.  Then under the guidance of producer Maurice Starr who had previously brought the world New Edition, the New Kids made a tremendous impact on the culture very quickly.

These days, four of the five Kids have kids themselves, as well as assorted careers and lives of their own, and so their decision to reunite had been an adult if joyful one that they’ve taken very seriously. That’s why this time around – even with the assistance of a great new team including Interscope Records and the Azoff Management team, it’s the original Kids themselves who have taken charge of their own destiny with new music that they found and funded themselves.

The New Kids album, The Block was really sparked when Wahlberg was in New York for a costume fitting for the upcoming film Righteous Kill that finds him living out another life-long dream by acting in a film alongside two of his greatest heroes, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino as well as 50 Cent. Finding himself around the block, Wahlberg visited the office of his longtime entertainment lawyer, Jaimie Roberts, who handed him a demo tape of a young singer-songwriter name Nazaree. Since the days of New Kids — and his time producing hits in the early Nineties for his brother Mark as Markey Mark and The Funky Bunch – Wahlberg has been handed a mountain of demos in his time and he took the offering with absolutely no expectations.

Putting the CD on while driving a few days later, Wahlberg heard two songs that spoke to him powerfully. “I got in the car in Boston on my birthday and I popped it in,” he recalls. “The first song was called `Click, Click, Click’ and from the minute it started, it just grabbed me. I kept waiting for this kid to falter, but he never did. Not only that – I immediately recognized that Joey McIntryre is going to love this record, Jordan Knight is going to love this record and I love this record. The music speaks to all of our sensibilities, but they’re all totally different. It was hip-hop and honest enough for me. It was soulful enough for Jordan and pop and unselfish enough for Joe. It just had it all. I spent the next few hours driving up to girls at red lights and playing them the song. They said, `Is that your song? I said `Not yet.’”

After years of blocking any reunion, Wahlberg was suddenly energized and drove to Jordan Knight’s house that night and played him the songs, “I told him. ` Jordan , this could be the moment right here.’ Jordan heard `Click, Click, Click’ and he loved it. Then I emailed them to Joe and the same reaction — and more importantly his wife cried. So I pulled out my checkbook and we started going.” What had started was more like a mission than a comeback.

Even before its official release, much anticipation for their return was expressed through chart-topping singles like “Summertime” and their newest hit, “Single” that features Ne-Yo. It is no doubt that this group has evolved and has been able to adjust to the test of time. Adopting a new fad in the music industry now, New Kids On The Block collaborates with other artists of this time like the Pussycat Dolls as well.

The newest album of the boy band turned major recording artists New Kids On The Block is available through CD at your favourite Odyssey, Astrovision, Music One and Fully Booked Stores, as well as through digital download through fliptunes.net. The Block is brought to you by MCA Music Inc.

(Article and photos courtesy of MCA Music)