When your band turns into a punchline to a bad joke, there are very few places to turn. Take what happened to New Kids on the Block. Like most teen pop phenomena, they suddenly dominated the charts for a few years, and then just as quickly they crashed to earth, their name eliciting nothing more than a smirk by the same audience who bought their records only a few months before. After 1994's Face the Music, the group members went their separate ways, some disappearing (Jonathan Knight), some turning to acting (Donnie ...
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When your band turns into a punchline to a bad joke, there are very few places to turn. Take what happened to New Kids on the Block. Like most teen pop phenomena, they suddenly dominated the charts for a few years, and then just as quickly they crashed to earth, their name eliciting nothing more than a smirk by the same audience who bought their records only a few months before. After 1994's Face the Music, the group members went their separate ways, some disappearing (Jonathan Knight), some turning to acting (Donnie Wahlberg), the rest eventually returning to music at the turn of the century. Of those three, only Joey McIntyre appeared to work hard to develop a distinct personality outside the group. He dipped his toe back into the water with 2001's Meet Joe Mac, which at the time sounded as if he was attempting to ride the teen pop wave at the time, but in retrospect shows signs of the melodic, mature pop stylings he developed a few years later. McIntyre began to come into his own when he hooked up with songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Emanuel Kiriakou, who co-wrote a handful of songs on Meet Joe Mac and became a full-time collaborator not long afterward. The breakthrough came on 2002's unheralded One Too Many, a ridiculously fun and loose live album. It was filled with wisecracks, flubs, and covers, yet also displayed a limber musicality, one grounded in classic pop songwriting and more in line with modern adult pop than the dance-pop that brought McIntyre his fame. It was the rare live album that pointed the way to the future instead of recapping the past, and those who heard it wondered where McIntyre would head next. Thankfully, his next album, 8:09, fulfills the promise of One Too Many, showcasing a newly mature and crafty pop singer/songwriter. Wisely, McIntyre never aims directly toward radio on 8:09; even the dancier numbers are a little subdued, putting the emphasis on the melody and song instead of the rhythm. All throughout the album the focus is on the song, and appropriately so, since these are sturdy, well-constructed pop songs with strong, memorable melodies. While the abundant humor on the live album has been toned down considerably, it still runs through a few tracks -- as on the Britney-baiting "This Is Different" and the satirical "California" -- which is just enough to add some spice on an album that's a little ballad-heavy. Nevertheless, these slow tunes aren't sappy or saccharine; there's an economy to the arrangements and a sincerity to the delivery that makes songs like "Supergirl" and "L.A. Blue" effective and affecting mainstream pop. The question is, given the state of the radio in 2004, whether there's a place in the mainstream for an album like 8:09, since there aren't as many outlets for good adult pop as there was ten years ago. Even if this ultimately doesn't make waves on the radio, Joey McIntyre has proven that he is no longer in it for the fame. With One Too Many and 8:09 he's shown that he's a serious, dedicated working musician, and that he's just begun to hit his stride. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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Add this copy of 8: 09 to cart. $54.55, new condition, Sold by insomniacsonline rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from South Hackensack, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Artemis Records.
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