Profile: New Kids on the Block

It was a cold rainy night in Dorchester, Massachusetts when Marlene and Allan Knight gave birth to a baby boy, Jonathan Rashleigh Knight. It was just the beginning of what would become one of the greatest musical groups of all time. Jonathan and his younger brother Jordan grew up in the Boston area. One day they got a call from one of their high school friends Donnie Wahlberg. Wahlberg had just been signed by Maurice Starr to be in a boy band and Donnie asked the Knights to join him, his brother Mark and another friend of his Danny Wood.

Details are sketchy but some people say the Knights were leery at first but when Donnie explained that Starr was the same guy who managed New Edition they were so in. Unfortunately Donnie's younger brother Mark ended up quitting and instead went for his own singles career as Marky Mark. He had an incredible career with hits such as "Good Vibrations" and…"Good Vibrations Remix." They needed a replacement for Marky Mark so they hired a 12-year-old by the name of Joey McIntyre. Originally the band would be called Nynuk but when Columbia Records demanded they change their name they became New Kids on the Block, and the rest is history.

In 1986 Columbia Records released the New Kids on the Block's first album called New Kids on the Block. The album was written by Maurice Starr and it was truly a masterpiece. The first single "Be My Girl" received airplay in the group's hometown of Boston but didn't get played nationwide. The rest of the country was truly missing out. "Stop It Girl" was their second single and it didn't do very well, I think it was because the NKOTB (New Kids on the Block) were sending mixed messages. Did they want the girl to be theirs? Or did they want the girl to stop it? Make up your mind. Shockingly the New Kids' first album was not a success. Starr persuaded Columbia Records to do a second album. And when I say persuaded I mean he asked and Columbia Records said "of course! NKOTB rocks! How could we not do a second album?"

In 1987 the New Kids on the Block went back into the studios and this time they worked 50% as hard as the previous album because they knew they could do this in their sleep. The first single was sung by the youngest member of NKOTB Joey McIntyre. At first the song wasn't doing too well and Columbia Records was going to shut down the New Project on the Block. But at the last minute a radio station in Florida started to play the single and everyone else started catching on.

People everywhere were saying "Wow this girl in New Kids on the Block has a great voice. What's that? Oh? It's a guy singing? Well this guy in New Kids on the Block has a great girl's voice!" When Columbia heard the song was doing well they promoted it like crazy and it climbed to #10 on the Billboard 100 Singles chart. The only reason it didn't reach higher than that is because many girls were jealous of Joey's voice.

The New Kids on the Block's second album Hangin' Tough had little fanfare behind it but it eventually started to get some recognition. Mostly due to their second single "You Got It (The Right Stuff)". The new single was very hip and unlike their first album the second single didn't contradict the first single. "The Right Stuff" music video began to play regularly on MTV and the New Kids on the Block's Hoppy dance was the best new dance in town but it would eventually be defeated by MC Hammer's Steppy dance in "You Can't Touch This" the following year. The third single was also a huge success. "I'll Be Loving You Forever" was the New Kids on the Block's first #1 song on the Billboards and once again the fans were glad this song didn't contradict the previous songs. In fact, you could take all three titles and string them together and you would have a very romantic note for you loved one.

Please Don't Go Girl. You Got It, the Right Stuff. I'll Be Loving You Forever. The next single "Hangin' Tough" would also be a success but not as big as the others because it didn't fit into the romantic note theme. By the end of the year the New Kids on the Block had the #1 album on the Billboard 200 and had gone eight times platinum. In January 1990 Hangin' Tough won two American Music Awards for "Best Pop/Rock Album" and "Best Pop/Rock Group." Many people petitioned that the NKOTB win all the other Music Awards too because their band reeked of so much awesomeness that it transcended genres. But the 6 billion New Kids on the Block fans were denied.

By 1990 New Kids on the Block were the biggest thing in the music world, even bigger than MC Hammer's pants. In the NKOTB's second album Step By Step the members of the group got to write their own songs. Every writer dreams of one day writing the great American novel. But nobody ever dreams of writing the great American album, because New Kids on the Block has already done it with such timeless classics as "Step By Step" and "Tonight". The NKOTB had nine consecutive singles hit the Top 10. I didn't look it up or anything but I'm pretty sure that means they had more hits than Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and Vanilla Ice.

Pretty soon everything had the New Kids on the Block on it. There were lunch boxes, packing trunks, sleeping bags, pillow cases, T-shirts, comic books, dolls, and a Saturday morning cartoon. There was even a New Kids on the Block Nintendo game but it was too awesome to release it. Donnie even had this great plan to write their name on the moon but they weren't sure if paint dries in space.

The NKOTB official fan club had a membership of over one hundred thousand names and received thirty-thousand letters a day and one hundred thousand phone calls per week. Of course it would only be nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine calls per week if it wasn't for me. I couldn't help it I just had to know how Donnie washed his torn up blue jeans without the washing machine ripping the rest of the pant leg off. The New Kids topped Forbes list as the highest paid entertainers in 1990 beating out the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson.

By 1991 the New Kids had become over-exposed. America could only take so much awesomeness at a time so they turned their attention towards Milli Vanilli and Nelson. The New Kids continued to tour in Europe and Asia because they hadn't filled their quota of awesomeness quite yet but the New Kids didn't release another album that that year. Unfortunately grunge and rap suddenly became the popular genre.

New Kids on the Block could've transformed into either but they decided not to. Joey and Jordan liked being pretty and they didn't want to dirty themselves up like grunge rockers. Donnie could've rapped easily, just look at how much success his little brother had, but he decided instead to start acting. Later Jordan and Joey both had singles albums because there were still twelve people who weren't fans of NKOTB and they thought they could reach those remaining twelve lost souls. Once they reached those twelve the NKOTB hung it up and walked off into the sunset knowing that their job was complete.