New Kids On The Block, the original boyband, are back so prepare yourselves for the mayhem that is about to unfold.
Two weeks after announcing their first US arena tour in nearly fifteen years, the band have already sold a whopping 300,000 tickets, selling out additional shows at a rate of 6000 tickets a day. Their first New York date sold out in just six minutes, Toronto in four minutes and a string of home town gigs in Boston in under ten minutes. Following this hysteria the band are now set to release a brand new single to be followed by an album of all new material.
Summertime, the first single from the forthcoming album, The Block, harks back to the band’s melodic, soul-pop roots as they reminisce about the summer of ‘88 when they were at the height of their dizzying fame. This track is just a taste of things to come. With the album still very much a work in progress the band have already started work with some of today’s hottest artists including Ne-Yo, Akon, Pussycat Dolls, Lady GaGa and Timbaland.
In the late Eighties and early Nineties, brothers Jordan & Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood created a cultural phenomenon, selling over 70 million albums as well as countless concert tickets, t-shirts, lunchboxes and fluffy slippers all over the world. Their repertoire included the back-to-back international number one albums, 1988’s Hangin’ Tough and 1990’s Step By Step, and a series of R&B-pop hit singles like ‘You Got It (The Right Stuff)’, ‘Cover Girl’ and ‘Step By Step’. At one point earning more than Madonna and Michael Jackson, NKOTB won two American Music Awards in 1990 for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group and Favorite Pop/Rock Album for Hangin' Tough..
After capturing the imagination of teenage girls around the world, New Kids On The Block parted ways in 1994 but critics concede they defined a genre, with bands like the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync using their template of what a ‘boyband’ should be.