First of all, I appreciate the effort the director made in including people speaking in a foreign language with occasional words I understand mixed in. That premise made KSCI one of my favorite channels when I couldn't afford cable in Los Angeles and will always be close to my heart. However, when the song actually kicks in, so do confusion and fear on my part.

The spectacle of Joey, Jordan, and the other guys singing through Autotune modifications to an audience made up of what is apparently the gritty urban youth of dark-ages Germany gets to what was so odd about the New Kids and their new material. While Donnie is rapping (or whatever you want to call it) about sexing a girl up with big hips at the club, most of the group's current fans are listening to the disc in the car while doing laundry or sneaking in one more track while waiting to pick up the kids at school. If whoever was writing these songs didn't pitch at least one song about hitting on a newly single mom during the intermission of the fourth grade's performance of The Wizard of Oz, they missed a golden opportunity. Instead, the reality of German peasants getting drunk on mead while Jonathan dances awkwardly downstage is as plausible as anything else the New Kids have done recently. Guys, if you're reading and you want to really speak to your demographics, think about setting next your video at a parent-teacher conference.

New Kids On The Block - Dirty Dancing offical video [YouTube]

• "Considering Top 40's predilection for unlined young faces, The Block's unexpected quality is no guarantee of a commercial rebirth for NKOTB, who play the Staples Center on Oct. 8. Believe it or not, though, they've got the right stuff." [LA Times]

• "And there's a bona fide smash-in-waiting with 'Put It on My Tab,' a T-Pain-styled club song helmed by Akon that is sure to make even the staunchest haters do a double-take. The Block may not break any ground musically, but it's actually strong enough to make people reconsider the New Kids' entire career and wonder what will come next." [Newsday]

• "'Summertime' isn't 'Hangin' Tough,' but it's totally '80s. The Richard Marx piano intro, dated synth patches and corny-but-catchy melody mix with a youthful, retro innocence. And that little doo-wop falsetto breakdown, like, totally rules. It's a false innocence to go with these older Kids' false youth, but it's got a hook. And after all, no one wants to hear Donnie rhyme about refilling Rogaine and Nexium prescriptions." [Boston Herald]

• "Several '80s references turn up, as in 'Swayze,' a clever reference to the movie "Dirty Dancing," and the single 'Summertime,' which openly courts nostalgia. But the now old kids don't have to look back to make a connection. A cut like '2 In The Morning,' with its airy Marvin Gaye allusion, has the kind of melody that proves they've once again got the right stuff." [NY Daily News]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: How do you transition a group that's known as a retro act into something relevant to the present day? Whoever was in charge of the comeback album for OG boy band New Kids On The Block decided to drag Joe, Jordan, Jonathan, Danny, and Donnie into the present day by stuffing The Block with as many signifiers of the mid-oughts as possible: T-Pain levels of Autotune; cameos by the Pussycat Dolls and Akon; Timbaland beats; lyrical references to Grey's Anatomy; libidinous songs about bottle service and homemade sex tapes. The end result, you may not be surprised to hear, is an album that sounds almost as awkwardly "of the now" as 1993's attempt to drop the "Kids" from their name, Face The Music. With songs like "Sexify My Love," which recalls both Flo Rida and the most generic radio R & B and "Full Service," a New Kids/New Edition collab that should be !!-worthy but instead forces every vocalist on the track through a pseudo-patois filter, The Block is constantly on the verge of turning itself inside-out and becoming a retro piece of its own, although the age it's recalling is one when Akon was all over the radio and Nicole Scherzinger had a chance at a solo career.

Sometimes, the Kids will dip into the memory banks of the ladies who, as screaming young things, filled malls in their honor: "I'm like Swayze," one of the Kids sings on the also-Akon-inspired, Autotune-heavy "Dirty Dancin'." Which should pull the heartstrings of many a 30something; after all, that movie taught a lot of middle school girls about eroticism (and illegal abortions) when it came out. But I can't wonder how many of the younger kids listening to this album are wondering, "oh, you mean like Cisco Adler's bestie?"

1. Green Day

American Idiot is their biggest album since Dookie, so the boys probably aren't ready to get back in touch with their inner Gillman St. An Operation Ivy reunion, though? With Rancid now stuck with the drummer from the Used, that shit could happen tomorrow.

2. U2

On a relative scale, that post-Rattle & Hum period was a bit icky. Not that most bands today wouldn't be happy to have been in their cowboy hats.

3. Kid Rock

Oh sure, "All Summer Long" is nostalgic. But not for this.

Beyond that, I'm at a loss! Even old bands with comeback albums like Motley Crue and Def Leppard were still doing better in '89! Journey was on hiatus, but Neal Schon was still making hit ballads with Bad English! Don Henley may not have had the Eagles, but he had The End Of The Innocence! Rod Stewart could do what he wanted, and Janet could rely on the Rhythm Nation. Neil Young may be proud of Living With War, but it's not "Rockin' In The Free World." Elvis Costello had "Veronica," Paul Westerberg had "I'll Be You," Donna Summer had "This Time I Know It's For Real." Rattle & Hum was only barely a flop, but I just cannot think of an act that did worse but is doing fine now. Can you think of a veteran artist today who can say they are in a better state, commercially and artistically, than they were in 1989?

Michael Jackson Plans Comeback With New Kids On The Block [Showbiz Spy]
Green Day live @ Paint Factory 1989 prt1 [YouTube]
Siskel & Ebert review "Rattle & Hum" [YouTube]
Kid Rock - Yo Da Lin In The Valley [YouTube]

"Hip-hop is a young man's game?" Aw, come on. You're younger than Ghostface, you're younger than Jay-Z. LL Cool J's still ripping his shirt off in public. Granted, you have an Oscar nomination, but I think you could still bust out some hot rhymes if you put some effort into it.

If you decide to stick with your thespian career, please keep making movies where you get to bully people. The Departed, I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings, Fear, Four Brothers, all your best movies have you giving people shit. Let someone else play the nice guy. Especially if it's the nice guy in an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Mark Wahlberg Passes On Funky Bunch Reunion. 'Not A F—ing Chance,' He Laughs [MTV]
Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg) at Claim to Fame [YouTube]

New Kids On The Block - Summertime (45 sec. preview) [YouTube]

Last week I poured cold water on the chart comeback of New Kids on the Block, who appeared on Billboard's less-heralded Pop 100 chart but remained M.I.A. on the all-genre Hot 100.

But I snarked too soon. This week, Danny, Donny Joey, Jon and Jordan have the week's highest Hot 100 debut with "Summertime," their un-Jazzy Jeff-related bid for postmillennial Top 40 radio. By debuting at No. 57, "Summertime" breaks a 14-year drought for NKOTB, who last made the middle rungs on the big chart with 1994's "Dirty Dawg."

It's poetic that the ur-boy band of the modern-pop era resurfaces the very same week boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman gets thrown in the clink. After all, 1994 was pretty much the moment when Pearlman began dreaming of rejiggering the five-boy New Kids template, launching the Backstreet-*N Sync era that entrenched the boy band in pop lore.

It's like a passing-back of the baton, from one pop era to its forbear. Not that I'd accept anything baton-shaped from Lou Pearlman...

Say what you want about teen screamers-turned-soccer moms, they're loyal—or at least, willing to part with 99 cents. The spur for the Kids' chart appearance is iTunes, where "Summertime" made its debut last week and toted nearly 39,000 downloads.

That's a respectable total for an act that's been out of the limelight for a decade and a half. But it probably satisfies the entire first wave of NKOTB's hardcore fanbase. (Imagine, if you can, the existence in 2008 of a hardcore New Kids fan.) If "Summertime" is going to move up the chart from here, it's going to need to sell to the moms' daughters, which means it's going to need radio airplay. It's nowhere to be found on the all-genre Hot 100 Airplay list, but Billboard reports that the track has made "a strong start at Top 40 radio"; on the magazine's list that's limited to pop-radio airplay only, "Summertime" is already ranked 35th among the most-played songs.

The bad news for the Kids is that, at least for now, they've shot their wad on major-market appearances that might goose sales or inspire radio programmers. The aforementioned 39K downloads includes sales tallied during the week of their incompetent but warmly received Today show appearance, as well as the height of New York-based frenzy surrounding radio station Z100's Zootopia concert last Saturday.

Still: if the last two decades of pop history are any indication, the last two years of a decade are ripe for a pure-pop comeback on the charts. New Kids owned that space in the early years of Bush, Sr.; whether they're destined for a lasting comeback in the waning days of Bush fils will largely depend on luck.

Here's a rundown of the rest of this week's charts:

• We've had a string of fairly rare occurrences in the Hot 100's top slot lately. Three weeks ago we saw a Leona Lewis song enter the penthouse a third time after falling out twice—the first time that's happened in three decades. Last week we saw Rihanna leap 52 notches into pole position, the second-largest such leap ever. And now, a somewhat less rare but still oddball phenomenon: Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" sneaks back into the top slot after a three-week pause. That's the largest such gap since Usher floated out of and, after four weeks, back into No. 1 in early 2002 with "U Got It Bad."

Weezy sneaks back into the penthouse thanks to consistency. His 143,000-download total is solid but not spectacular, but he's the only act in the Top Five to see his sales decline by single-digit percentages each week over the last month. Compare him to recently ruling divas Lewis and Rihanna: the former's sales yo-yo up and down week to week (up 28% one week in late April, down 24% a couple of weeks later), and the latter followed last week's explosive sales debut with a 27% swoon this week.

The bottom line: after several weeks of exciting turnover in March and April, the upper reaches of the chart are sleepy again—so sleepy that our man Matos interviewed his peeps for another hilarious Billboard Top 10 review session, using last week's chart, and all 10 of those songs are still in the winners' circle. (Man, can somebody get Matos' sister Brittany over to some radio programmers' offices? She'd call them "illiterate" and insist they stop playing Usher and Young Jeezy on pain of withering shame.)

• On the Hot Country chart, two blonde reality-TV veterans with sin-drenched current singles each have a pretty good week—with the promise of a better one next week. Carrie Underwood's floozy confessional "Last Name," which had been stalled at the bottom of the Top 10 for about a month, finally catches fire again, slinking up three spots to No. 7. And Miranda Lambert's heat-packing "Gunpowder and Lead" inches up two more spots to No. 18, looking to become her biggest-ever country radio hit (she's four notches shy of the peak by 2007's "Famous in a Small Town").

What the two gals have in common is great recent TV exposure that won't be reflected until next week's charts. Underwood just performed "Last Name" on the American Idol finale two nights ago, and while her inevitable iTunes boost won't affect this chart, I'll be shocked if Idol-savvy country programmers don't boost its airplay. As for Lambert, her CMA triumph this past Sunday, winning the marquee Album of the Year trophy, might finally give radio the excuse it's been waiting for to put her into power rotation.

• Talk about filling a market gap: "Hallelujah" by Kate Voegele debuts at No. 68, on the strength of 37,000 downloads. All of those sales were presumably at iTunes, because Voegele's cover of the Leonard Cohen tune is an Apple-exclusive bonus track on her most recent album. (The iTunes bonus is ironic, because Voegele is signed to the Interscope-distributed MySpace Records.)

As we reported here months ago, Jason Castro's performance of "Hallelujah" on American Idol spurred hundreds of thousands of iTunes downloads of Jeff Buckley's angelic 1994 cover of the song, the obvious model for Castro's performance. But neither Buckley's nor Castro's versions of "Hallelujah" were eligible for the Hot 100—the former is too old, and sales of the latter weren't reported to Billboard for charting purposes. Voegele's cover, however, is fully Hot 100-eligible, hence its debut. The shocker: this is the first version of "Hallelujah" ever to appear on the Hot 100.

A repeat performance of the song by Castro on the Idol finale this week is going to boost anything "Hallelujah"-related, but apparently most of the people who wanted the Buckley version bought it after Castro's first performance in March. As of today, Voegele is beating Buckley on iTunes: his cover is ranked 77th among Apple's top-selling songs, and Voegele's is ranked 67th.

• One last Idol-related item: we could see some huge chart debuts on the Hot 100 next week. I don't have the full story at press time, but apparently iTunes and the Idol producers have decided to open the floodgates to the finalists' songs now that the contest is over—you can not only buy them (as you could all season), but their sales are being publicly reported for the first time. Check out the store's top sellers as of today: David Cook has the top four songs, with "The Time of My Life" (his gooey finale song), "Dream Big" (his Tuesday pick among the schlocky songwriting candidates), his U2 cover, and his Collective Soul cover. Also in the iTunes top 20: three David Archuleta songs.

God only knows how many copies each of these tracks is selling, but if all interested parties and Billboard collectively decide these recordings are chart-eligible, the Top 10 could look wildly different and even Beatles-like next week.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:

Hot 100
1. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 3, 10 weeks)
2. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 2, 14 weeks)
3. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 1, 6 weeks)
4. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 5, 14 weeks)
5. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 4, 20 weeks)
6. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 6, 16 weeks)
7. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" (LW No. 7, 9 weeks)
8. Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocketful of Sunshine" (LW No. 9, 14 weeks)
9. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 8, 14 weeks)
10. Danity Kane, "Damaged" (LW No. 10, 10 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 1, 196,000 downloads, -27%)
2. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 2, 143,000 downloads, -13%)
3. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 3, 143,000 downloads, -8%)
4. Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocketful of Sunshine" (LW No. 4, 131,000 downloads, -1%)
5. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" (LW No. 5, 120,000 downloads, -6%)
6. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 8, 88,000 downloads, +2%)
7. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 7, 85,000 downloads, -9%)
8. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 9, 78,000 downloads, -10%)
9. Jesse McCartney, "Leavin'" (LW No. 10, 77,000 downloads, -10%)
10. John Mayer, "Say" (LW No. 11, 67,000 downloads, -5%)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
2. Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby (Part 2)" (LW No. 6, 12 weeks)
3. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 8, 8 weeks)
4. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
5. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 2, 15 weeks)
6. Ashanti, "The Way That I Love You" (LW No. 3, 14 weeks)
7. Chris Brown, "Take You Down" (LW No. 10, 8 weeks)
8. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 4, 15 weeks)
9. Trey Songz, "Last Time" (LW No. 9, 16 weeks)
10. Usher feat. Beyonce and Lil Wayne, "Love in This Club, Part II" (LW No. 12, 4 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Brad Paisley, "I'm Still a Guy" (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
2. Phil Vassar, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (LW No. 3, 29 weeks)
3. James Otto, "Just Got Started Lovin' You" (LW No. 1, 31 weeks)
4. Rascal Flatts, "Every Day" (LW No. 6, 13 weeks)
5. Lady Antebellum, "Love Don't Live Here" (LW No. 8, 33 weeks)
6. George Strait, "I Saw God Today" (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
7. Carrie Underwood, "Last Name" (LW No. 10, 10 weeks)
8. Kenny Chesney, "Better as a Memory" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
9. Taylor Swift, "Picture to Burn" (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
10. Montgomery Gentry, "Back When I Knew It All" (LW No. 11, 13 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Weezer, "Pork & Beans" (LW No. 1, 5 weeks)
2. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
3. Flobots, "Handlebars" (LW No. 3, 7 weeks)
4. The Offspring, "Hammerhead" (LW No. 5, 2 weeks)
5. Linkin Park, "Given Up" (LW No. 8, 11 weeks)
6. Nine Inch Nails, "Discipline" (LW No. 10, 4 weeks)
7. Foo Fighters, "Let It Die" (LW No. 11, 7 weeks)
8. The Raconteurs, "Salute Your Solution" (LW No. 6, 8 weeks)
9. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
10. Coldplay, "Violet Hill" (LW No. 14, 3 weeks)

I suspect that the first question on most Idolator readers' minds will be "But how were New Kids On The Block??"—and I have to say that their set was something of a disappointment, from song choice (the only retro cut to get a full airing was the Beatles-aping "Tonight") to the mix (unfortunate) to Joey begging the crowd to request "Summertime" so that Z100 would play it "five times a day" (uh) to the cake that was brought out to celebrate Jordan's birthday midway through the set (it had what looked like a big thumbprint in it, and its candles were falling over near-dead). If this was Irving Azoff's attempt to gin up demand for the Kids' reunion tour, well, it failed. And whoever had the idea to have Donny, Joey, Jordan, Danny, and Jon be joined onstage by five bikini-clad backup dancers should be fired immediately. You're trying to resell the fantasy to your now-older-than-said-booty-shakers base, guys!

Perhaps to please the New Kids fans in the crowd, the night was heavy on the '90s signifiers—in addition to the New Kids and the Spawn Of "Achy Breaky" being on the bill, and Katy "I Kissed A Girl And I Liked Getting The Attention" Perry showing up to remind the crowd of her existence, one of the sponsors was Do Something, the Andrew Shue-founded youth action group that had a few PSAs running in between sets. (Shue, alas, was nowhere to be found in the video packages, although Jordin Sparks was.) You may not be surprised to know that every time the Jonas Brothers appeared onscreen, I was reaching for my earplugs again.

Speaking of the JBs, they played a tight little set that was something of an improvement of what I saw during their Jingle Ball appearance in December—not only could I actually hear the music through the discrete screeches of young ladies thanks to my relocating to a conveniently located breezeway midway through their set, the band sounded pretty tight, and Kevin Jonas' stage-presence quotient has gone through the roof, with his white pants and purple sweater making me wonder if he's started taking notes on Gabe Saporta's crowd-working strategies. (This is probably a good place to note that the arena runners were even expecting a turnout that was so lady-heavy they gave over entire mens' rooms to women, a transformation that led to me witnessing five or six 12-year-olds coming face to drain with urinals for the first time in their lives.)

In an effort to appeal to those pop fans who had just graduated from tweenpop world, Z100 also booked a lot of piano-playing troubadours, the types of singers who seemed to come directly out of the Billy Joel-blaring drama-club rooms of America's suburban high schools. Gavin DeGraw's songs had the most oomph out of all of them, but he was hamstrung by sound problems; Sara Bareilles got the one-song-only treatment, even though she has a new video where she smirks at the camera and everything. Out of all of them, though, I felt worst for Ferras, who some of you may know as the guy who sang the American Idol see-ya song for the first few weeks of this season; at the end of his one-song set, he tried to remind the audience of his MySpace username, which had the unfortunate quality of being eleven characters long and very misspellable (Ferras or Feras? Or is he named Ferrous, you know, like iron?)

So straight-laced was the night that when Flyleaf was brought out for its "grin and introduce it" appearance, the one guy with Alice Cooper eyeliner and a top hat looked kind of menacing, where usually he'd look mostly ridiculous. Although I guess the "ridiculous" aspect of that appearance was taken care of by the DJ seriously introducing his band as one of the best rock bands in the world.

Z100's Zootopia 2008 [Official site]
[Photo: Getty]

While the Grammy campaign is just getting underway and could face a long, hard road to its desired destination, Lyle Greenfield, recently elected AMP's national board president, thinks the timing of such a lobbying effort is ideal in that commercial music is becoming more widely regarded as mainstream entertainment—so much so that major recording artists are embracing the ad discipline, and original music that strikes a responsive chord with audiences is regularly making spots standard fare on YouTube.

Songs For Soap notes that "Better Than I've Ever Been," by KRS-One, Kanye West and Nas, was nominated for a Grammy despite being written for an advertisement, so an Best Original Song In An Advertisement award might be superfluous. My problem is that the proposed cateogry will ignore the efforts of artists who take one of their popular numbers and adapt them to fit a product.

Why should this be up for a Grammy...

and not this?

Organization Plans To Petition For Grammy Recognition Of Spots; Spec Sheet Introduced [Shoot]
Do We Need Grammy Award Categories for Ad Songs? [Songs For Soap]

Miley Cyrus
Jonas Brothers
Simple Plan
Sara Bareilles
Gavin DeGraw
Ferras
OneRepublic
Jordin Sparks
New Kids On The Block

Oh, the oral sex references that are going to abound on the text-messaging screen that night! And if you want to know what the New Kids' new album, which is due out sometime in the near future, might sound like, here's a taste of what's apparently going to be their next single, the photography-inspired "Click Click Click":

That backing track is a little Max After Dark for me, but maybe they'll make the video a Blow Up homage.

New NKOTB Single [ONTD]
Z100 2008 Zootopia Lineup announced [ONTD]

They're claiming this is the first group photo fifteen years, but I'm not sure I agree with their math. The band released their last album, Face The Music in January 1994, and followed its release with a tour before disbanding that June. And if somebody took a photo of the boys in the that time, then it has only been fourteen years since we've seen them united. Here's the video for "Dirty Dawg," the first single from Face The Music. Banned by MuchMusic in Canada for its suggestions of violence and misogyny! Guest raps from Nice & Smooth! Hopefully the boys will pick up where they left off and bring us some new jack swaaang.

New Kids On The Block release first group photo in 15 years [Yahoo!]

• J. Mascis (More Light, Free So Free) and Lou Barlow (EMOH, New Folk Implosion) recently recorded an album with ex-Lemonhead Murph for Fat Possum Records.

• Tarzan songwriter Phil Collins went on a world tour in 2007, backed by Mike from Mike + The Mechanics and new age keyboardist Tony Banks.

• Frank Black, following the simultaneous release of his Black Letter Days and Devil's Workshop, changed his name to "Black Francis" and started a new touring band with Breeder Kim Deal (2002's Title TK), ex-Martini Joey Santiago and a magician known as The Scientific Phenomalist. They have since recorded a song for the soundtrack to Shrek 2, which was rejected.

• The FutureEmbrace rocker Billy Corgan reteamed with Zwan compatriot Jimmy Chamberlain for an album with seven differently colored covers, and bonus tracks specific to the stores and countries where they could be exclusively purchased. On tour they are joined by members of The Lassie Foundation, the Halo Friendlies and a USC Jazz Piano graduate.

• Flin Flon guitarist Mark Robinson performed a one-time engagement in DC with Teenbeat solo artist Phil Krauth and ex-con Bridget Cross.

• Lutist Sting (Songs From The Labyrinth) introduced a new combo with jazz guitarist/film scorer Andy Summers and Oysterhead drummer/film scorer Stewart Copeland at the 2007 Grammy Awards.

Now it looks like singers Joey McIntyre and Jordan Knight will be harmonizing on Today with Saw II actor Donnie Wahlberg, Upper Street member Danny Wood, and Jordan's brother Jonathan, a real estate developer. What insanity could be waiting for us next? Morrissey teamed with a Modest Mouse guitarist? Justin Timberlake hooking up with JC Chasez, a would-be astronaut, the host of The Singing Bee and a dude with bad hair? God only knows.

Stone Temple Pilots Plotting Extensive Tour [Billboard]

ATTENTION NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK FANS

THE TIME: 7AM EST / FRIDAY APRIL 4th, 2008
THE PLACE: THE TODAY SHOW COURTYARD
ROCKEFELLER PLAZA, 48TH/49TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY

THE EVENT: BE THERE IF YOU ARE READY...

And remember: They're being managed by the same guy who's now dealing with Axl Rose's business affairs, so perhaps this will just be step one in the announcement of a "Get In The Ring '08" tour featuring the two bands that threw chaos into the hallways of America's middle schools. Time to dust off my peach acid-washed denim shirt!

New Kids On The Block - This Friday On the Today Show [I'm Not Obsessed]
New Kids are back [Boston.com]

Hello to everyone. Hope all is well and everyone is enjoying the New Year. I wanted to address the rumors of the NKOTB Reunion Tour. There has been no talk of this and you are getting it from source directly. Never say never, and you can't believe everything you read. On another note my solo record will be released in Australia in March. There are a few new songs on it and I hope you guys will check it out. Thank you so much for your continued support. Dwood

According to a Dlisted reader, the announcement that the band is making next month involves a reality show looking for a "new" NKOTB—much like the Menudo show that aired on MTV last year. Because surely, the kids will love to buy records by a band with the same name as their mothers' favorite group from their teenage years. And the worst part? If the nu-NKOTB show somehow doesn't flop, we're going to be confronted with Hey, Hey! The Search For The New New Monkees sometime around the spring of 2009.

NKOTB reunion not happening? [Dlisted]

"Jordan Knight launches his comeback!" [Splash News Online, via Dlisted]