New Kids On The Block’s Hangin’ Tough (33 1/3)

Rebecca Wallwork is – unashamedly – a fan of the New Kids. She loves the Hangin’ Tough album which is why she has written this Hangin’ Tough book (snobs attracted to the 33 1/3 series will be a bit put out by its inclusion I’m sure) but she has continued to follow the band, turning up to reunion gigs – travelling across oceans and continents even. She’s bought the new albums.

In and around a study of nostalgia and the merits of this album Wallwork looks at the neuroscience of fandom. A good angle to pick through when considering an album that is almost objectively of and tied to an era. Any “classic” status around this album is utterly dubious – and I say that as someone who has (kinda proudly) owned a copy of the record, even carried it out in public in a DJ crate once, maybe twice…

But it’s still a hard sell for Wallwork. The writing here is great, honest and open and thoughtful – and where it is the manic fandom speaking it is completely acknowledged; tapped into, studied, unpicked. But where it is around the album and around the general concepts of fandom and nostalgia the reader perhaps finds easier ground; the same thoughts can be applied to a personal guilty pleasure then – maybe not NKOTB but something relatable, transferable.

I’m still not totally sold on the idea that this book works within the confines of the series, but as the volumes pile up they can’t all tell the same sort of story the same sort of way. So kudos for the writer’s gumption and for the editor’s commitment to thinking outside the now narrower square of perceived “classic” records. I thought it was a fun read. No gripes here. Made me – almost, almost – consider playing the record through one more time too…