Back to the Beginning: New Kids on the Block vs. Backstreet Boys vs. NKOTBSB

Love them or hate them, but boy bands have pretty much climbed into the established ranks of pop music and will stay there for the foreseeable future. Whether manufactured through auditions with music studio execs or producers, brought together as siblings through parents’ encouragement, or simply born on their own due to each member’s persistence and hard work, these groups seem to make a living out of seeing who can fill the largest venues with the youngest, shriekingest girls (and their female guardians). Though I’m not, and never will be, a part of this demographic, I’ve known and grown up with quite a few members, and I can tell you that these ladies have very, very good reasons for why their chosen favorite boy band member was the BEST MEMBER OF THE GROUP AND THE CUTEST AND MOST TALENTED AND OH MY GOD SO DREAMY.

Of course, I often overheard this argument, since the girls that would have this discussion with the most vocal opinions ate at the lunch table behind me. But that’s a story for another time. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Though often derided as pretty boys with no real musical talent, more than a few bands actually have the looks, brains, ability, and business savvy to make it work for the long haul. Inevitably, the band’s fan base grows up and moves on, leaving the band’s members to either pursue solo music careers with varying degrees of success, attempt other artist endeavors (acting, of course), or fade into obscurity. The really (un?)lucky ones end up talking to Dr. Drew or The Donald, but at least they remain entertaining.

A few bands manage to stay together, making music and albums for a decade or so, buoyed on by a fervently persistent fan base (and sometimes their children, too).

So, what do you do when you’re a member of one of the three best-selling boy bands of all time? I’ll tell you what you do. You form a super group with one of the other ones. THINK OF THE MONEY YOU’LL MAKE.

Yes, I’m oversimplifying. I’m pretty sure Donny, Danny, Jordon, Jonny, and Joey didn’t call Brian, A.J., Nick, and Howie and say, “Hey, dudes! By our powers combined we are super boy band! Everything we touch turns platinum! Let’s do this thing!” Makes for a great thought experiment, though.

Here’s another great thought experiment in several parts: Is NKOTBSB’s (New Kids on the Blockstreet Boys?) collaborative effort greater than the sum of its parts? Which group has come farther in terms of musical maturity as it relates to boy bands? (I’ll let the reader decide what that means in this context.) Do the two groups merge seamlessly into a kind of bubblegum-pop-singing Voltron or do they collapse into a top-40 black hole?

Even if you think you know my opinion, read on. I’m about to admit some things about myself that I’m not proud of. And if you tell anyone…

New Kids on the Block

A quick Wikipedia search lead me to the conclusion that bubble gum (as a metaphor) and boy bands go together like two things that, on the surface, go together really well. However, because of how my brain works, I needed to specifically equate each band, both separately and jointly, to a piece of gum, based on their respective first albums and then their joint effort. (Pretend this is science.) Here’s what I came up with.

NKOTB : Bubble Yum. This gum tastes great for, like, 10 seconds, but you don’t care because you love the taste and all of your friends chew it, too. This is some fun gum; you can blow some amazing bubbles with this shit. However, chewing this gum as an adult will probably provoke one to two reactions: “Are you still chewing that stuff? The sugar will rot your teeth out, you know” or “I love that you still chew Bubble Yum. I used to beg my dad to get it for me all the time when we went to the grocery store”.

Bubble Yum put soft bubble gum on the candy map, and I think it’s safe to say that the New Kids did the same for modern era boy bands. They’re cute! They sing catchy tunes about love and girls! They even rap! What fun!

Sadly, their first album pretty much bombed when it came out, needing their stronger second album, Hangin’ Tough, to carry it into multiple platinum status. And covering the Delphonics pretty much ensured that soccer moms would give them a listen, too.

Backstreet Boys

Backstreet Boys : Extra. This gum lasts FOREVER. Doesn’t necessarily taste as good, but you’ve been chewing that one piece for, like, three weeks and it still has that wintergreen flavor WHAT DID THEY MAKE THIS STUFF OUT OF OH MY GOD I AM SO SCARED.

Staying power is a fitting descriptor for the Backstreet Boys, too. They’ve sold the most albums of any boy band so far (over 130 million as of 2010), and Backstreet Boys, Millennium, and Black & Blue have 35 RIAA Platinum certifications between them. And, with singles like “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” you can see why.

I heard you! You were totally singing along! Admit it! (Oh, wait. That was me. Never mind.)

NKOTBSB

NKOTBSB : Chicklets. It’s candy! It’s gum! It freshens your breath! Kids sometimes even ask you if you have Chicklets! It’s an inoffensive gum that everyone knows about and (mostly) no one is embarrassed to be seen chewing.

This supergroup, in my mind, embodies most of these qualities. The two singles on NKOTBSB are pretty much wait you would expect from the combination of these two bands: modern bubble-gum-pop sensibilities, catchy hooks, danceable beats on the fast track, slow jams on the slow track, and produced to within an inch of their lives.

I would personally count the album as a minor disappointment, though. The track listing consists of the two aforementioned singles (“All In My Head” and “Don’t Turn Out the Lights”), a six-and-a-half-minute-long Glee-like mash up (unimaginatively called “NKOTBSB Mash Up”), and 10 tracks that fans of these two bands probably already have. You have two of the highest grossing boy bands in the studio AT THE SAME TIME. MAKE SOME MONEY, BITCHES. GIVE THEM MORE SONGS TO SING. MORE SONGS LIKE THIS ONE.

If you tell ANYONE that I was chair-dancing while listening to this song, I will kill you and your entire family. I SWEAR TO ZEUS I WILL.

Verdict: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts in this case. Buy the singles separately, though.

Also, I fear for the precedent that this will set. Do we have a Color Me Badd/Hanson supergroup to look forward to in the near future?

Please. Please no. I can’t take much more.