“The Block”: After years of anticipation, does NKOTB have the right stuff?

We have all been waiting with bated breath, and the moment has finally arrived - the New Kids on the Block have finally delivered us a new album. Due out on Tuesday, "The Block" is a collection of 12 brand new tracks from our favorite boy band.

I will not lie to you - I was pulling for the greatest hits. I wanted to hang tough, and I wanted to hear Jordan once again tell me I had "the right stuff" - but I was still excited by the prospect of discovering an all-new group. This was a significant opportunity for the guys to show us how they had grown into their own sound. Unfortunately, the effort has fallen short. After all of this time, it seems that the boys are still letting others guide their musical direction. As youngsters, this was entirely understandable, but as grown men who have made no small matter of showing their resistance to having the Suits dictate their career (notably, the matter of whether or not there would be a reunion at all), they should have stepped up and shown that they are ready to stand on their own.

Instead, this is an album of collaborations with such current industry hotshots as Ne-Yo and Akon, as well as the much-anticipated union with New Edition (I don't think I could even tell that either NKOTB or New Edition was on the track with all of the production). Please don't get me wrong, these collaborations are not entirely in vain. In fact, perhaps my favorite track on the album is "Grown Man", featuring the Pussycat Dolls (aka, a song with Nicole Scherzinger), whom I otherwise generally dislike…strongly. (Admittedly, the greatness of the track is probably thanks in large part to Teddy Riley.) But the songs overall are rather generic and could be performed by anybody in today's music scene. In the typical fashion of today's Timbaland-infused music scene, they are entirely overproduced - you can barely hear the vocals. The NKOTB of yore certainly had treated vocals on their records, but they were true songs. With "The Block", vocals are like an afterthought. Ultimately they just took a bunch of major producers and gave them access to a few too many midi plugins. Furthermore, in what I am sure was a desperate attempt to find a way to market a once-iconic group to a new audience they slapped on a bunch of random side artists and called it a wrap. It seems like somehow the boys got lost somewhere along the way.

I would love to have a New Kids album that actually featured the New Kids. This does no such thing, and I can't help but feel a little let down. Of course, that won't stop me from playing it over and over again until my iPod gives me the stink eye.