I’ve just heard the New Kids On The Block collaboration with Ne-Yo. Wow. Not bad at all.

You know, compared to our own revival of Take That, I always thought the New Kids reunion would be a bit of a damp affair. And until this single, which is called – annoyingly – Single, I had no reason to believe NKOTB stood a chance in the pop charts.

But thanks to a smart pairing with Ne-Yo and a very chart-worthy R&B-style single, you’d be hard pressed to remember Donnie Wahlberg ever wore ripped jeans…

I’m a bit bewildered, because the single was on the Urban Chart on some music channel today, but Wikipedia says it was released in August – huh? Is it current or not?

Regardless, this is worth a listen. Ne-Yo is growing on me, despite a shaky start, and NKOTB are looking good on this. Although the video is funny, because Jon Knight and Danny Wood are virtually cut out of the whole thing. Play ‘spot the less good-looking NKOTB member’ just for fun.

So, who’s beating who in the boyband reunion charts – Take That or New Kids?

New Kids On The Block appeared on the Today show in America …well today, and revealed their plans for their new reunion album.

We reported back in January that NKOTB were planning to reform, but Danny Woods spoke out and refuted that rumour. We’d be calling them liars right about now, except that Donnie explains in the video that they were hoping to keep things under wraps until the new album was ready, but that the earlier leak forced them to come out and admit the reunion was on.

Watch the clip below:

The five guys will appear on US TV show, The Today Show, this Friday, April 4th.

Though it is not yet clear if the band will be performing or if it will be an interview only, we will try and get you a clip from the mighty youtube asap!

To get you in the mood here are the boys, back in the day, performing ‘Hangin Tough’. Quality!

You heard me right, Maurice Starr’s all-singing, all-dancing boyband, New Kids On The Block are reforming. With all these 90’s pop acts reuniting, there has never been a better time to have a midlife crisis.

Funnily enough, we were sitting in the kitchen the other day trying to remember the dance moves to The Right Stuff. When it comes to music gossip, I swear I’m psychic!

All the furore about New Kids reforming seems to centre around their suddenly-active-again website. As yet, there’s no official confirmation of a reunion, or indeed whether original manager Maurice Starr is behind the venture.

Word on the street is that there’ll be some kind of announcement in the next couple of weeks. Before they split, they shortened the name of the group to NKOTB – which was popular with fans, but confused everybody else. Now that they’re older (and presumably more brand-savvy), I predict they’ll revert to the full ‘New Kids On The Block’ moniker. Even if ‘Kids’ is really stretching it at this point – the youngest member, Joey McIntyre, is 36 this year.

If you weren’t there at the time, New Kids had a virtually unchallenged rise to fame and became the biggest boyband in the world between 1988 and 1992. The Hangin’ Tough album is probably their best known, followed by Step By Step a couple of years later. The group released a remix album called No More Games, but at that point they seemed to be on the slide.

I distinctly remember feeling that Donnie Wahlberg was the most restless member of the group. Not only did he have a wild streak, resulting in an unfortunate arson-type incident in a hotel, but he also seemed to have a growing thing for rap music, which was less in keeping with the NKOTB image.

Anyway, as they faded from the scene and eventually disbanded in 1994, they still paved the scene for the string of boyband acts in the UK that followed: Take That, Boyzone and the rest.

So, an NKOTB reunion could be either very awesome, or very sad indeed. Now, apparently Danny Wood has dismissed the rumours, but sure we’ll speculate a little bit anyway, shall we? They probably just forgot to tell him…