If I’m fanatic about New Kids on the Block, I might be even more fanatic about New Edition-scary thought, isn’t it?
So when it was announced that the New Kids’ comeback album “The Block” would feature a collaboration with the group that pretty much spawned them, I was pretty damn excited. So, less than a week before “The Block” officially hits stores, the song, “Full Service”, has leaked. The question, now, is has the teen idol summit meeting actually resulted in a great song?
Sometimes we have to justify what we really love with what our friends (or in this case, readers…well, actually both) will think is cool. Which is why I switched my Clash song three or four different times while compiling this list.
Truth be told, I actually really do love The Clash. Were they “the only band that mattered”? Well, they certainly weren’t to me then. But then again, when Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and the boys were popular, I wasn’t even old enough to tie my shoes. So…The Jacksons mattered more to me then. Hall & Oates mattered more to me then. Hell, Air Supply mattered more to me then. Is it the same now? Well…Air Supply doesn’t matter to me as much, for what that’s worth.
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The musical landscape is littered with them: artists trading on the talent and fame of their more talented, more famous sibling. Most music fans are smart enough to know that whenever “the brother or sister-or son or daughter- of chart-topping singer XXX” arrives on the scene, they should run for cover. My pals at Popdose recently dedicated an entire article to the phenomenon, bringing back some famously awful examples of a few artists who assumed that sharing a bloodline with someone meant sharing their talent as well.
So you have every right to be frightened by the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles. Yep, Solange is the little sister of world-famous diva singer/actress Beyonce Knowles, sister-in-law of Jay-Z. She’s occasionally stepped in as a fourth member of Destiny’s Child, co-written songs for her sister and her sister’s bandmate Kelly Rowland, and released a fairly horrid album of her own half a decade ago, “Solo Star”. However, she’s probably most known for creating a chink in the fresh-scrubbed Knowles family image by getting knocked up at 17 (Papa Mathew Knowles almost immediately made Solange marry the baby’s father, a move that Mr. & Mrs. Spears would have been wise to emulate). Now a 22 year old divorcee, Solange makes her re-entry onto the musical scene with “Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams”, a title so pretentious you almost want to hate the album before it starts playing.