New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block

The Block

(Interscope)

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Fourteen years after stepping down as teen pop sensations, New Kids on the Block are back to cash in with a new album and tour, said Glenn Gamboa in Newsday. Strangely enough, The Block is “the best album of their multiplatinum career.” The first single, “Summertime,” is harmless 1980s nostalgia, while the rest of the CD is a bit more adult, featuring a contemporary R&B feel and such guest artists as Ne-Yo and Akon. “Adult” is right, said Ashante Infantry in the Toronto Star. To show that they’re no longer “kids,” the guys put “way too much skank in their game,” singing about naughty sex on such tracks as “Dirty Dancing” and “Sexify My Love.” Once too young and innocent for such raunchy lyrics, the Kids—all pushing 40—now seem too old. Still, the actual material on this album is stronger and more with-it than their earlier stuff, said Jim Farber in the New York Daily News. The problem is, The Block sounds just like what everyone else is doing these days, full of over-synthed voices and halfhearted production by the likes of Timbaland. “Oh the irony”: Without the New Kids, ’N Sync wouldn’t have existed to spawn the career of Justin Timberlake. “Now these onetime Kids have come back to ride Justin’s coattails.”