New Kids hangin’ tough with fans on 3-day cruise
May 16, 2009 by Willis
Filed under Music News
New Kids hangin’ tough with fans on 3-day cruise
The little girls who made the New Kids on the Block a boy band sensation in the late 1980s and early 1990s are all grown up, and now they’ve got disposable income.
So what better way to show their love for Jordan, Jonathan, Joey, Donnie and Danny than spending three days with them on a Caribbean cruise?
About 2,100 women, most in their 20s and 30s, paid more $1,000 each for a sold-out, three-day Carnival Cruise Lines trip that left Miami for the Bahamas on Friday. The voyage kicks off the band’s summer concert tour, when they’ll dust off hits like “Hangin’ Tough” and “Step by Step” along with songs from their 2008 album.
Fans squealed and giggled as they boarded the boat, angling for a glimpse of the New Kids. Some wore buttons and T-shirts with their favorite band members’ names and photos. Others kissed cardboard cutouts.
The band will perform twice during the trip, allowing half the passengers to come one night and the other half the next. Other events include meet and greets and photo ops.
Concert cruises provide a nice bump for Carnival, which recently lowered its earnings forecast because it’s had to slash prices to maintain its bookings. John Mayer and Lynyrd Skynyrd have done recent cruises and an upcoming voyage is Elvis-themed. Barenaked Ladies took its fifth “Ships & Dips” cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line in February.
Fans like the concert cruises because they’re “a more intimate experience than you would have in a typical stadium or concert venue,” said Cherie Weinstein, Carnival’s vice president for business development.
New Kids cruiser Shannon Wright, 32, of Syracuse, N.Y., was hoping to get up close and personal with her favorite New Kid, Donnie — as in Wahlberg, older brother of Mark Wahlberg, who started out as rapper Marky Mark and is now a respectable film actor — but said she’d probably faint when she did.
She might get the chance if she aces a poker tournament on the cruise itinerary for Sunday — the winners play Wahlberg at midnight.
Wright says her husband is “a little jealous of Donnie, but otherwise he’s OK with it.” She just got over seeing the group in concert a month ago, and now she’s got them cornered on a boat.
Emily Vance of Dayton, Ohio, took the cruise with her mother, Debbie Kingham, and friend Jenny Duncan. They wore matching black tour-branded tank tops and gushed about their favorite member — also Wahlberg, who was known as the “bad boy” of the group.
Kingham and Vance remembered their first concert in July 1990. When Vance went to their reunion concert this October, she cried.
Vance and Duncan said their husbands think they’re crazy, but they don’t care.
“We’re the only ones who understand,” Duncan said.
After 20 years, band members say it’s flattering to still have screaming women at their feet.
The confined spaces of a boat make it harder to get away from obsessed fans, but they said they want to spend time with people who are still loyal.
In between jokes about wearing Speedos on deck and making the entire boat breakfast, band members talked Friday about why they decided to continue performing.
“Our fans have come out since Day One, and we’ve just tried to answer the call,” said Joey McIntyre, at 36 the youngest member of the group. “It had to be fun and it had do be challenging, or we wouldn’t have done it.”
The New Kids “Full Service” summer tour begins June 4 in Atlanta.
New Kids On The Block - 2 In The Morning
February 23, 2009 by Willis
Filed under New Tracks - Pop
New Kids On The Block - NKOTB - 2 In The Morning - Video’s being released on Tuesday and this is being billed as their next single. It’s not too bad except the “Wake Up” part reminds me of “First of the Month” by Bone Thugs N Harmony. 7/10
Click below to listen (not the original video)
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New Kids On The Block - Dirty Dancing
December 25, 2008 by Willis
Filed under New Tracks - Pop
Pretty decent track. I can see some remixes in this tracks future, as well as a decent stint on radio. 7/10
Click below to listen (not the original video)
New Kids On The Block
October 2, 2008 by Willis
Filed under Artist Of The Day
“After his success with New Edition, producer Maurice Starr decided to replicate the singing group, substituting suburban white kids for the young black teenagers. The result was New Kids on the Block, a pioneering boy band that quickly eclipsed the popularity of Starr’s previous group while laying the groundwork for the teen pop boom of the late-’90s. Comprising Boston-area singers Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Jon Knight, Danny Wood, and Joe McIntyre, the New Kids were awkward and enthusiastic on their 1986 debut, which wasn’t surprising given the boys’ age (the oldest members were barely 16 years old, while McIntyre was only 12). With their next album, 1988’s Hangin’ Tough, the group’s image had toughened up and they had the slick, radio-ready material to support it. From the saccharine ballad “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” to the title track’s stab at funk, the band enjoyed a seemingly endless streak of hits in 1988 and 1989. Five songs entered the Top 10, and even the group’s Christmas album went double platinum as it road the coattails of Hangin’ Tough up the Billboard charts.
New Kid mania continued in America with 1990’s Step by Step; even if it sold five million copies less than Hangin’ Tough, it still sold an impressive three million copies. The album also fared well internationally, moving an additional 16 million units in other parts of the world, but Step by Step was nevertheless the group’s last album to enjoy such worldwide success. New Kids were the subject of an endless amount of jokes, including allegations that they hadn’t sung a note during the Hangin’ Tough recording sessions. Furthermore, their audience was growing up. In 1994, they rechristened themselves NKOTB and returned with the Starr-less Face the Music, which actually showed a remarkable musical maturity. The group had grown into a credible urban R&B outfit, yet the album hardly sold anything, even if NKOTB continued to pack theaters on tour. In June of 1994, the members announced that they had acrimoniously parted ways
Various members of New Kids launched solo careers later in the decade, with Knight scoring a gold record in 1999 and Donnie Wahlberg landing several movie roles. Attempts to reunite the group in the early 2000s proved fruitless; however, the band surprisingly reconvened in early 2008, announcing their decision to tour in support of a new album. The Block arrived later that year, followed by tour dates in Canada and America. Although critically panned, The Block nevertheless debuted at number two on the Billboard charts.”
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Andrew Leahey
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New Kids On The Block - The Block
September 10, 2008 by Willis
Filed under New Album - Pop
Product Information, Audio Previews, Reviews and More On:
New Kids On The Block - The Block
“The New Kids’ comeback album contains songs like “Grown Man,” “Big Girl Now” and “Put It on My Tab,” designed to deliver the message that they’re no longer the fresh-faced tweens on your pre-algebra notebook. But when one of them sings, “Let’s try every position,” on “Sexify My Love,” it’s hard not to smirkify your face. Sure, the New Kids deserve a shot at a reunion as much as anyone. But unless you’re holding the album cover you’d have no way of knowing who these singers are, so completely have the Kids been filtered through the Usher Machine. Most of “The Block” is a reasonable enough approximation of faceless club pop, complete with standard-issue guest stars (the Pussycat Dolls, Timbaland) and out-of-left-field rap bridges. When the Kids hit the road this fall, songs from “The Block” will do little more than provide nostalgia-craving fans a chance to check their BlackBerrys. —Jeff Vrabel”
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New Kids on the Block feat Lady GaGa - Big Girl Now
August 29, 2008 by Willis
Filed under New Tracks - Pop
N.K.O.T.B. are barely getting airplay on their second single from their new album “Block” and a third single is about to drop. These guys did a great job recording this album, and I’m excited for the album. This track won’t disappoint and should do well. Probably see it on the September MOTM. 8/10
PS - This Lady GaGa chick is pretty hot in a strange hot sorta way.
Click below to listen (not the original video)
