Turn That Noise Down - New Kids on the Block

So many well-known albums turn 30 this year and Steve Taylor-Bryant and Susan Omand travel back to 1990 to revisit some of the sounds of their youth that made parents shout "Turn that noise down!" This week, Steve remembers everyone’s favourite boy band as he goes Step By Step...



Don’t you @ me! If you are around my age you listened to New Kids on the Block and not even accidentally, you put on the radio or pressed play on your cassette player and actually listened. Liars, the lot of you…



Anyway, NKOTB were huge, imagine Take That but bigger and actually taxpayers, and you couldn’t escape the music or the girls deciding which member they fancied most, or boys trying to decide which NKOTB star they would rather be (the right answer was of course Jordan.) After blasting into our lives in the late 1980’s entering the new decade was hard for some, but not initially for NKOTB with Step by Step spawning numerous number 1 singles globally, spending a crapload of weeks at number one on most album charts and launching the boys above the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna on the Forbes rich list. But in 1990 I got a hand dyed T-shirt from a friend so, you know, who is to say who the real winners are…



The album wasn’t, in my opinion, as good as Hangin’ Tough but it still produced a few gems like Valentine Girl, the titular track Step by Step, Tonight, Let’s Try it Again, and it contained more lyrics penned by the boys and not just the music factory churning it out. Step by Step also led to a huge lip-synching court case which dominated the U.S. national press as well as the music press, but the Brits will always have Milli Vanilli…



1990 was really the last year I listened to completely manufactured pop music and, I will be honest, I found it a little hard to give up as my musical tastes grew and NKOTB were the band that hung in the longest (we do not consider Duran Duran or Robbie Williams manufactured pop [that is correct - Ed]) and it's only right I share a video from Step by Step and smile to myself at some happy memories.



#JordanRulez

From the reunion (swoon) tour, here is Step by Step...

Image - My teenage bedroom wall - Steve [Wikipedia - Ed]