Grown-up New Kids on the Block add mature music to bubblegum '80s repertoire

By Alan Sculley, FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Say what you will about the idea of New Kids on the Block -- the group that essentially paved the way for the current teen pop phenomenon -- reuniting when its members are all 40 or nearing that age.

But at least in reuniting, the group made a new CD, "The Block," and it reflects the fact that these guys aren't so new and definitely not kids anymore.

"Click Click Click," the opening song on the CD, immediately sends the message that these aren't the innocent New Kids, as the guys playfully sing about inviting a girl to take off her clothes and pose for photos.

"It's just natural," Joey McIntyre says of the more adult-themed material on "The Block." "That's what music is about, is exploring who you are as a person now. And we're grown men. Whether we're married or not, we're in complex relationships, and consequences are different now. And I think we wrote about those. We wrote about the good times and the tough times and the harder times on this album. It just makes for a more textured piece of work, and it's been fun to do that. It just feels authentic."

Of course, this still leaves the question of just how authentic it feels to see these grown men onstage singing the light romantic tunes that made up their repertoire in the late-1980s when the New Kids drove its mostly female audience to the kind of scream-filled reactions not seen since the Beatles were touring in the early 1960s.

It appears a lot of people have no problem seeing the New Kids mixing in the innocuous songs of their youth with the more mature music they created for "The Block." The group's first tour last fall was an all-out success, as was another run of dates this spring.

Now the New Kids -- McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Joe Knight and Danny Wood -- are playing large outdoor amphitheaters this summer, bringing what McIntyre says is a new production to these venues. The tour comes to the Post-Gazette Pavilion in Burgettstown on Thursday.

"We've got a brand-new stage, really exciting video elements and a whole new look, which is really cool," McIntyre says. "And there are a bunch of new songs that we're doing, kind of switching up some of the newer songs from our new album. Of course, we're playing all of the old hits. We've got to play all the old hits. We're lucky that we have hits to play, so we're doing that. But we always want to keep it fresh and exciting, because that way it's exciting for us. If it gets stale for us, we know it's going to feel that way for the audience."

That the New Kids on the Block are together to even try to stay fresh and exciting is something that few would have expected just a few years ago.

The group, which sold a combined 80 million copies of its four albums worldwide -- with 1988's "Hangin' Tough" and 1990's "Step By Step" leading the way -- received many big-money offers to reunite during the 14 years they were apart. But those were turned down, with Wahlberg often credited as the New Kid who balked at these opportunities.

Wahlberg, in his post-New Kids life, enjoyed a successful acting career, with roles in such high-profile films as "Ransom" and "The Sixth Sense." He consistently maintained he wouldn't do a New Kids reunion simply for the money. There had to be a legitimate musical and creative reason for the group to exist again.

That incentive came into play when Wahlberg was given a recording of the song "Click Click Click," which was penned by an up-to-then unknown artist named Nazeree. Wahlberg thought the breezy, hip-hop-laced ballad was just the kind of song the New Kids would do.

He presented the song to the other New Kids, and they decided to see if they could make viable music again.

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