New Kids on the Block (also known as NKOTB) is an American pop group that enjoyed success in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a boy band which went on to sell 80 million albums worldwide. Managed by Dick Scott and Kim Glover. Assembled in Boston in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr the members consist of brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight Joey McIntyre Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood. They won two American Music Awards in 1990 for Favorite Pop/Rock BandDuoor Group and Favorite Pop/Rock Album. After having disbanded in 1994 several attempts were made to get the group back together all of them unsuccessful. Upon secretly reuniting in 2007 they took on a new style released a new album and embarked on a concert tour in 2008. The album entitled The Block was released on September 2 2008.
New Kids on the Block's official fan club had a membership of over 200,000 members and was one of the largest fan clubs in the world. Approximately one hundred thousand calls per week were dialed to 1-900-909-5KIDs, the Official NKOTB Hotline, as well. In 1991, the group topped Forbes list of highest paid entertainers, beating out the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, and Bill Cosby. Further capitalizing on the fame, at year's end, Columbia Records released No More Games/The Remix Album—a compilation of the group's biggest hits remixed, the album also brought along two more released songs in "Call It What You Want" (UK *12) and "Games" (UK *14) in which videos were also released.
After the failure of the first album Starr had the group back in the studio for most of 1987 and 1988 recording their second album. Dissatisfied with the excessively bubblegum sound of their first album the group wanted to have more input on their lookdirection and song material. As a result Donnie Danny and Jordan received associate producer credit on the final product. The album's first single was "Please Don't Go Girl" a ballad released in the spring of 1988. Failure seemed destined a second time when the song became another that went unnoticed by the listening public and Columbia Records made plans to drop the New Kids from the label. At the eleventh hour however a radio station in Florida began playing the song. Scoring listener approval it soon became the most requested song on their play list. When Columbia caught wind of the positive responsethey decided to keep the group on its roster and put more effort into promoting the single. National attention soon followed and it eventually climbed to #10 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart—becoming the group's first hit.
The following May they followed up Hangin' Tough with Step by Step which featured slightly more than half of the songs co-written and produced by the members themselves. The first single the title track raced to number one on the Hot 100 Singles Chart and became their biggest selling single. It was followed up with the top ten "Tonight" which extended the consecutive top ten singles chart run to nine records.
On August 12 2008 they released their second single "Single" featuring R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo followed by the release of the group's first studio album in fourteen years The Block. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums Chart and #2 on the Billboard 200 in September 2008. It was certified Gold in October 2008 in Canada.
The group's reunion tour New Kids on the Block: Live began at Toronto's Air Canada Centre on September 18 2008. They are touring the US with Natasha Bedingfield and Lady GaGa as supporting acts. There are seven concerts scheduled for Canada and forty-one in the US ten in the UK one in France and One in Amsterdam in The Netherlands and two in Germany. A NKOTB sponsored "theme" concert cruise (for their fans) is scheduled to depart MiamiFL and go to the Bahamas and return to Miami FL from May 15-18 2009. The group also announced the Full Service Tour for 2009. [wikipedia]
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