Joey McIntyre
Stay The Same
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Ricky Martin
Vuelve
Sony Discos, 1999
Jordan Knight
Jordan Knight
Interscope, 1999
It's 1989, and New Kids on the Block are everywhere. Barely pubescent females and their kid sisters wet themselves over the teen-mart faces and clumsy-dancin' bods of Jordan, Joey, Donnie, Danny and Jon. Department stores overflow with New Kids clothing, bedding, lunch boxes, dolls and, oh, yeah, CDs. Pop-dance R&B-harmony acts dominate the charts, New Edition are peaking like crazy, and the Latin version of bouncy-boy
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madness, Menudo, celebrate their twelve-year anniversary with another departure: Seventeen-year-old Ricky Martin -- like all Menudo cuties -- is retired, to be replaced by a fresher coraz-n-throb. Meanwhile, a Manhattan retail establishment known as Menuditis sweeps away its obsolete merchandise to make way for the new. Now it's 1999, and although they split up five years ago, when the girls dropped them for Jodeci and Green Day, the New Kids are once again everywhere. The influence of these hype-not-hip harmonizing hotties on Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, 98 Degrees, 5ive, Boyzone and all other bubblegum brothers is as obvious as the money in their managers' bank accounts. Lip-smackin' cheese is no longer confined to the dairy counter. Jingle-ready choruses and crunchy beats rule. Even the artiest alt-rockers wanna go pop. Menuditis has reopened, and there isn't a mall in the U.S. today that doesn't honor that special bond between a girl and her willfully manufactured beloved. The timing couldn't be better for New Kids' true crooners -- Joey McIntyre and Jordan Knight -- to stage solo comebacks, or for Ricky Martin to crack Menudo-wary mainstream America.
It makes sense that McIntyre, as the youngest Kid, adheres to the boy-band formula he helped create, even if the pretense of urban adulthood surfaces in his arrangements' allusions. "Couldn't Stay Away From Your Love" evokes the old-school funk of the Gap Band even more religiously than "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," while "Give It Up" samples a Puffy-size replayed chunk of GQ's "Disco Nights (Rock-Freak)." And on the climactic chamber-orchestra workout "Without Your Love," an unbashful bluesy guitarist evokes The Dark Side of the Moon.
It can't be denied that lil' Joey has grown big time as a singer. Nonbelievers might be startled to hear how masterfully McIntyre can belt a ballad or slide across a dance rhythm. Yet his cliched, self-penned lyrics suggest a youth spent dodging tutors, and their fixation on trite surface thrills makes his soulman phrasing too mannered for the rote riffs he rides. Its title refers to a well-meaning lyrical message directed at a self-doubting friend, but Stay the Same might as well be summing up McIntyre. He still comes across as a f
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