Return of “The Right Stuff”
New Kids on the Block, to whom I was greatly devoted in my middle school years, will be reunited this morning on the “Today” show, according to a story on the NBC program’s Web site.
The reunion is taking place two decades after the release of their multi-platinum breakthrough album, “Hanging Tough,” which included the hits “What’Cha Gonna Do (About It),” “Please Don’t Go Girl” and the title track.
The former boy band plans to release a new album and go on tour. The band will return to the “Today” show on May 16 to perform their first live concert since 1994 as part of the morning show’s summer concert series.
Not-So-New Kids Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight are now nearing their 40s. They released on Wednesday this new photo that has them looking more like GQ-style corporate execs than the dancing, chanting and flamboyantly-frocked boy bandmates that my peers and I fondly remember. (That’s by no means a complaint; I would expect no less after 20 years. I certainly look a lot more grown-up and pulled together than I did back in ‘88.)
And don’t worry, the guys of NKOTB apparently aren’t going on the road just to once again croon and frolick to ”You’ve Got It (The Right Stuff).”
Wahlberg said in the “Today”/Associated Press story that he was convinced to get the band back together when they decided to record new music. He said he wrote 80 percent of the new material with McIntyre and Jordan Knight.
“I had no interest going out on a nostalgia tour and singing the same material,” said Wahlberg, 38, in the story.
But he added, “We absolutely will do the old songs for sure.”
Producer Maurice Starr formed the group in Boston in the 1980s, hoping to recreate the success he had with New Edition, another teen group from Beantown.
NKOTB sold 70 million records in the ’80s and early ’90s. Sold-out world tours (I dragged my whole family to see them at Skelly Stadium in Tulsa.), millions in merchandise and a Saturday morning cartoon also were part of their boy band dynasty.
The group broke up in 1994.
Wahlberg (brother of Mark “formerly known as Marky Mark” Wahlberg) has since acted on television and in movies, including an amazing, nearly unrecognizable turn in “The Sixth Sense.” Jordan Knight, McIntyre and Wood have released solo albums, and McIntyre appeared on “Dancing With the Stars.” Jonathan Knight has worked as a real estate developer, according to the story.
According to the AP, Wahlberg told the Boston Herald that fan response to the reunion has been “incredible.”
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about going another round with NKOTB. I wish them well, and I don’t look upon my adolescent fervor for them with embarrassment. But I’ve pretty much moved on. I feel a great deal of nostalgia about them, but I’m much less likely to be swayed by cute dimples, boyish grins and cool haircuts than I was at age 12.
I think I’ll reserve judgment on this one until I actually hear some of their new music and their takes on the old hits.
But I know for certain that I now will have “The Right Stuff” going through my head for days.
-BAM
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OMG! Where’s my Bible! I’m sure this is in Revelations as one of the signs of the Apocalypse!!! Please tell me this isn’t really happening!