To feel nostalgia is to feel as though you are taken back to a place where everything just seemed right with the world. A childlike state of mind. Thanks to New Kids on the Block we are welcomed back to the childlike state of mind with open arms. Its been 30 years since New Kids on the Block released their sophomore album Hangin’ Tough. Songs like “Please Don’t Go Girl”, “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)”, “Hangin’ Tough”, “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” became staples on record players and cassette players for every preteen and teenage girl across the globe (I was the exception at 5 years old. What can I say…). Thirty years later these songs still bring back a sense of longing and evokes the wishful thinking for a simpler time.
On March 8, 2019, New Kids on the Block re-released Hangin’ Tough: 30th Anniversary to a long awaited anticipation, and from the world of Blockheads, it was well worth the wait. From the classics we know by heart, to previously unreleased in the U.S. versions of “Please Don’t Go Girl”, “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”, “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)”, “Hangin’ Tough”, and “Cover Girl”, then to 3 new singles, we are left with the same adolescent feelings that take us happily back, but also loving this adulthood we find ourselves in so many years later.
The first two released singles off the re-release, “80’s Baby” and “Boys in the Band (Boy Band Anthem)”, Jordan, Joe, Jon, Donnie, and Danny pay the well known respect and homage they have towards their fans and to the core of where they came from. They know they did not get to the place they are on their own and know exactly where the credit lies. In an interview with Variety Donnie says regarding “Boys in the Band (Boy Band Anthem)”, “The million-dollar question with a song like ‘Boys in the Band’ is has the environment changed towards boy bands that would encourage me to write a song like this, or have my feelings about being in a boy band changed enough to make me write it?” he considers. “It’s probably both. I’m not sure where this song came from inside me, but the reaction to boy bands is certainly different than it was 30 years ago and I take pride in our journey. I think you have to have had a career that covers a certain amount of time to be able to look back and do a song like this. I don’t know if we could have made this song 30 years ago because I don’t know that we would’ve earned it. I think, now, we’ve earned it.” And they have definitely earned it.
The third new, yet unreleased single, “The Way”, showcases a current sex appeal that, to be honest, shocked some fans with lyrics such as “He don’t know you the way I do/He don’t touch you the way I would/He don’t f*** you the way I could/He don’t love you the way you should be loved, my love/The way you should be loved.” New Kids on the Block has been bringing a more adult flavor since 1994 with the release of Face the Music, and this continued into the 2008 release The Block, their first album together in 14 years. They know their audience has grown up with them and they understand their music and lyrics have to follow suit.
The world has been screaming for a throwback to a simpler time and this album delivered with it’s perfect combination of the old we love and the new still bleeding who NKOTB is at their core.
You can find the album via CD or vinyl anywhere records are sold and online at Amazon, Amazon Music, iTunes, Spotify, or Apple Music. You can also catch NKOTB on tour this summer in Mixtape Tour with Salt-N-Pepa, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and Naughty By Nature. Tickets are available at http://www.nkotb.com.
Music In My Lyrics 