The New Kids on the Block are "old school" by today's teen standards, but their alumni are making comebacks. Joey McIntyre has a Top 20 hit in "Stay the Same," and Jordan Knight hopes to challenge him with "Give It to Me," which is in the Billboard's Hot 100 and is the first single from a new solo disc, "Jordan Knight," due May 11.
Knight is on a hectic promo tour to remind fans that he was the lead singer of the New Kids and has made a "more mature" solo album. (It was co-produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis _ the architects behind Janet Jackson's biggest hits _ and by Robin Thicke, whose dad is TV star Alan Thicke.)
The New Kids ruled in the late Eighties _ long before the Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys, or 'N Sync. But Knight says "the wave crested" in 1994 with the final Kids disc, "Face the Music," which quickly hit the cutout bins and caused him to take time off.
"I signed a {solo} contract in 1995, but it took a long time to find people that really had good chemistry with me _ one being Robin Thicke, the other Jimmy Jam," says Knight, 28. "We were able to hang out and listen to records we liked and really connect on that level."
To keep in tune, Knight played occasional solo gigs, but hardly anyone knew about them. He would show up unannounced at a Boston hotel bar and sing Elton John songs under a fake name.
"I wore a baseball hat and some glasses that looked like prescription glasses but weren't," Knight says. "I was just trying to stay low-key. It was an older crowd, too, so they didn't know who the heck I was."
For the most part, Knight's new album is a welcome step beyond the New Kids. "Give It to Me," while one of the weaker tracks, is a sexy, come-hither pop tune with a calliope-sounding coda recalling a "Sgt. Pepper's" tune (no surprise, since Knight is a huge Beatles fan). A hip-hoppy remix of the song is also on the CD.
But most of the record offers grown-up sounding ballads such as "Broken by You," "Never Take the Place" (a Prince song slowed down to striking effect), and the poignant "Separate Ways." Knight always had singing ability that wasn't tapped in the lighter New Kids fare but is more apparent now.
"I love slow songs and pretty melodies _ and that's a lot of what's on here," he says. "I didn't want to go totally left and try to be something that I wasn't, just because `Oh, I'm not cool now because I was a New Kid.' I didn't want to fall into that trap. People know when you're not being genuine."
The funkiest tune is "A Different Party," which samples a guitar riff from Sugarloaf's 1970 hit "Green-Eyed Lady." Says Knight: "It was Jimmy Jam's idea. I didn't know it was a sample. The Sugarloaf song was before my time. I just thought it sounded like something Beck would do, like surfer music. But I said, `Hey, this is cool. Let's go with it.'"
