"Ex-New Kid Jordan Knight Readies Solo Debut"

New Kids on the Block were the most successful teen group of all time -- they sold over 50 million albums worldwide and grossed and estimated $840 million in 1990 alone. But as usual, all good things must come to an end. The group called it quits after their 1994 curtain call, Face the Music, tanks miserably.

Now, with NKOTB carbon copies the BackStreet Boys and N'Sync, among others, currently commandeering the pop music airwaves, the climate seems ripe for the reappearance of Jordan Knight (now 28), the unofficial leader of the group. What took so long?



"We were kind of dilly-dallying for the first year or so," says Knight. "Deep down in my mind, I said, 'I need to kind of give it a rest for a little bit.' I also felt like the music I wanted to do, the market wouldn't accept. A lot of the music [that was popular] was more hard-core rap and alternative-- I love that stuff too -- but it's just not what I do."



Knight, who inked a seven album deal with Interscope Records in 1996, will see the release of his as-yet-untitled solo debut next January. He recently spent several weeks in a Minneapolis recording studio with legendary R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson, Prince, Boyz II Men), mixing four of the albums 10 tracks, including the first single, "A different Party."



Knight no stranger to fame on a mammoth level, was admittedly timid when he first began working with the uber-producers. "I was really nervous," he says. "Since I was 18, I've wanted to work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. I grew up watching Janet [Jackson] explode on the scene and listened to all the music Jam and Lewis have done since then. I always thought they'd be good producers for me. The anticipation of working with them was up there."



Knight plays keyboard on several songs on the album, which he describes as R&B-flavored but with elements of hip-hop and alternative as well. But will people care? With hits to the Jordan Knight home page clocking in at well over 500,000, one would think so. But whether or not Knight's music can reach beyond every teeny bopper wannabe who is merely reliving their adolescent fantasies all over remains to be seen.



"I've always felt in my mind that I could be successful as a solo artist," Says Knight. "And if something wasn't measuring up to that picture in my mind it would be frustrating. But I'm not going to base a career on one album."



As far as his New Kids past goes, Knight still has daily run ins with fans and gawkers. "I can go to the grocery store and people won't make a big deal about it," says Knight. "They say, 'Oh I know who you are!' but it won't be the mass hysteria that it used to be. A lot of people don't believe it, and ask me for my ID"



Report by Kevin Raub, September 4, 1998, Allstar News