New Kids on the Block: 10
Details
Pros:
Updated sound of contemporary pop puts NKOTB in grown-folks territoryCons:
Flooded with safe AC ballads and Usher-esque familiar dance-pop; hardly pushes the envelopeAdd up their albums and compilations, and you got the lucky number 10. But this album’s score is far from a ten. Being a boy band is an uncanny, misunderstood phenomenon in pop music. The formula works well when it’s at its zenith, where the marketing machine is well lubricated and properly exercised to work […]
Add up their albums and compilations, and you got the lucky number 10. But this album’s score is far from a ten.
Being a boy band is an uncanny, misunderstood phenomenon in pop music. The formula works well when it’s at its zenith, where the marketing machine is well lubricated and properly exercised to work at its full potential. But with age comes retooling, repurposing and reimagining. Rock bands don’t have to worry too much about that. Maturity usually makes better music and life choices. That’s the big problem with the magic of boy bands. By nature, boy bands are forced to stay boy bands, despite the wrinkles and aching knees that prevails them in their adulthood. Their fans usually don’t want them to grow up, nor does the labels. For nostalgia’s sake, their adolescence is only recounted in memory, hardly ever showing up in their music. New Kids on the Block (NKOB) are far from kids and they’ve been around the block more than a few times, so that explains why 10, the group’s tenth album (including compilations), sounds a bit more evolving.
10 opens up on the right note with “We Own Tonight,” a refreshing pop ballad filled with synthy string frizzles and radio-ready pleasantries. “Remix (I Like The)” kicks out a Bruno Mars-esque jam that’s more in line with their more urban experiments. But the plethora of MOR ballads (“Take My Breath Away,” “Wasted on You,” “Fighting Gravity,” “Miss You More,” “Jealous (Blue)”) easily takes over the disc, forcing them to grow up in a more relaxed adult contemporary universe. These are decent Usher-like slow jams dressed with light club beat tapestry that will grant them a few casual listens. Even the charming Eurobeats of “The Whisper” sounds like it would work well against Usher’s “Numb” or anything with that copy-and-paste melody. Harmonies are a tad bit stronger than anything coming from the One Direction camp, but the Denmark-based songwriting/production superteam of Deekay (Lars Halvor Jensen, Martin Michael Larsson, Tim “Data” McEwan, Daniel “Obi” Klein, Jonannes Jørgensen) fails to create something rambunctious futuristic, something that’s going to push the pack ahead of the competition. Devout followers of NKOTB certainly didn’t except them to rehash the performances of “The Right Stuff” or stuff as schmaltzy as “Hangin’ Tough,” but they probably were expecting a few mementos from their college yearbooks. Instead, they are confronted with a fast-forward update that focuses too much on the barrage of modern dance pop and a slew of formulaic AC ballads, with the “Remix” as the only shining exception of NKOTB doing something so left-field and something so right.