New Kids On The Block Biography

New Kids on the Block was a commercially successful boy band of the late 1980s and early 1990s formed in Boston in 1984.

The members of the band were Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, brother Jonathan Knight, Danny Wood and Joey McIntyre, all from Boston. Based on R&B/Pop quintet New Edition and assembled by their former manager and producer Maurice Starr, their self-titled debut album in 1986 was largely ignored.

They began to be noticed by teenage audiences in 1988 when they opened for Tiffany in her concert tour.
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Their second album, Hangin' Tough (1988), sold eight million copies around the world, with five top ten singles: the title track, "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)", "Please Don't Go Girl", "Cover Girl" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)." In 1989 they were scheduled to open for Tiffany once again, but their sudden popularity caused a reversal where Tiffany opened for them (though the two acts were officially "co-headliners"). Jonathan Knight dated Tiffany around this time.

With saturated coverage in teenage fan magazines and even a short-lived animated television series, they became hugely famous and sold millions more of their next two albums, one a recording of Christmas songs and the other Step by Step (1990), with some of the songs co-written by the group members. The group became heavily merchandised and had everything from T-Shirts to dolls. A video game based on the group was even set to be introduced for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but was never released.

Faced with the constant derision of people outside their preteen fan base and the maturation of that base, in the 1990s they split off from Starr and released one album of self-composed R&B, Face The Music, which, despite a mildly positive critical reception, sold poorly. The group broke up in 1994.

After the group's demise, Wahlberg and Danny Wood formed a record label, and Wahlberg also produced two albums of his brother Mark Wahlberg, who has gone on to become a successful actor. Joe McIntyre and Jordan Knight each released moderately successful solo albums. Also, McIntyre was a regular on the FOX television show Boston Public and performed in Broadway musicals including Wicked. He also was a contender on the reality show Dancing with the Stars.

More recently, Donnie Wahlberg has been involved in movies such as Southie, The Sixth Sense, the critically acclaimed mini-series Band of Brothers and the short-lived police drama series Boomtown in which he played "Detective Stevens". He also had the lead role in the horror film Saw II which opened #1 at the box office in its opening weekend, October 28th, 2005, with $31 million dollars.

As of November 2005, Mark Wahlberg suggested a comeback of the group before they became too old.

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NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK BIOGRAPHY