New Kids on the Block (stylized as NKOTB) are an American vocal group from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Initially conceived as a boy band, the group consists of brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood. New Kids on the Block had success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and have sold more than 80 million records worldwide. They won two American Music Awards in 1990 for "Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group" and "Favorite Pop/Rock Album". Additionally, they are often credited for paving the way for later boy bands such as Take That, Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC.
Formed in 1984, New Kids on the Block achieved stardom in 1989, an achievement listed as number 16 on Rolling Stones "Top 25 Teen Idol Breakout Moments". Although the group disbanded in 1994, they reunited in 2007 to record an album and mount a concert tour in 2008. Since then the group has released two more studio albums and have continued to tour.
The group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014. Fans of the group are often referred to as "Blockheads".
History
1984–1986: Early career
In the early 1980s, Maurice Starr discovered pop/R&B quintet New Edition, and guided their early success. After he was fired by New Edition for embezzling funds, Starr and his business partner, Mary Alford, sought to create a white counterpart act. Fifteen-year-old Donnie Wahlberg impressed Starr and Alford with his rapping skills, becoming the group's first member. He was initially joined by his younger brother Mark, who left the group after only a few months. Donnie then recruited his school friends Jamie Kelly, Jordan Knight and Danny Wood to join the group; Knight was followed into the group by his older brother Jonathan, while Kelly left the group early on. With the final lineup in place, Starr rehearsed the boys after school and on weekends, and eventually secured the group a recording contract at Columbia Records.
In the meantime, the group began making national televised appearances on such music programs as Showtime at the Apollo and Soul Train. Producer Maurice Starr then held auditions to secure a band of musicians suitable for touring with the New Kids, approving musical director and keyboardist Greg McPherson, bassist David Dyson, keyboardist Yasko Kubota, guitarist Nerida Rojas, and drummer Derrick Antunes. The New Kids later landed a spot as an opening act for fellow teen-pop act Tiffany on the U.S. leg of her concert tour. Sales of Hangin' Tough steadily increased as the group's national attention slowly rose. At year's end, the album's second single, "You Got It (The Right Stuff)", was released. The song was given a huge boost when MTV took notice of the group and began playing the video in regular rotation, including an appearance on Club MTV. By early 1989, it cracked the top five. and was one of the biggest selling music videos of all time.
The then governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, declared April 24, 1989 to be "New Kids on the Block Day".
1989–1993: Step by Step and lip synching allegations
By the end of the late 1980s and at the beginning of the early 1990s, New Kids on the Block had become one of the most popular acts in the United States. That May, they followed up Hangin' Tough with Step by Step, for which just over half of the songs were cowritten and produced by the members themselves. The first single, the title track, hit number one on the Hot 100 Singles Chart By late 1990, David Dyson assumed the role of musical director.
The group performed an estimated two hundred concerts a year, with an extravagant worldwide concert tour that summer called The Magic Summer Tour, sponsored by Coke. The tour ultimately grossed $74 million ($133 million adjusted for inflation), making them the top-grossing touring act in the country at the time and one of the highest-grossing concert tours of the decade, with overall attendance of 3.2 million people. Their 1990 pay-per-view special broke records at the time. During this time, NKOTB licensed merchandise flooded the market, including lunch boxes, buttons, t-shirts, comic books (published by Harvey Comics), and dolls. They inspired a Saturday morning cartoon, developed by the Pangea Corporation and animated by DIC Entertainment. In 1991, sales of the group's merchandise was estimated at US$400 million.
New Kids on the Block's official fan club had a membership of over 200,000 and was one of the largest in the United States. The official NKOTB hotline, 1-900-909-5KIDs, received approximately 100,000 calls per week. In 1991, the group topped Forbes list of highest paid entertainers, ahead of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince and Bill Cosby. At year's end, Columbia released No More Games/The Remix Album, a compilation of remixes of the group's biggest hits. It produced two singles, "Call It What You Want (The C&C Pump-It Mix)" (UK No. 12) and "Games (The New Kids Get Hard Mix)" (UK No. 14), for which videos were also released.
The group released no new material in 1991, and instead toured throughout Europe and Asia. That summer, Wood and Wahlberg co-wrote and co-produced Music for the People, the debut album from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, headed by Wahlberg's brother Mark, a former New Kid. Music for the People would end up going platinum and scoring a number-one hit with "Good Vibrations". In 1991, they performed the halftime show at Super Bowl XXV, a first for a pop music group, however the performance was not broadcast on TV due to a preemption for a speech from President George H. W. Bush regarding the Gulf War.