Synopsis
Sensing this, group member Donnie Wahlberg led the group in coordinating this remix album, which fused the "harder" elements of hip-hop and urban dance into the New Kids' sound, resulting in No More Games/The Remix Album — with a significant portion of the album remixed by Robert Clivilles and David Cole (of C+C Music Factory fame). Also employed was a marketing tactic to release the album under the 'NKOTB' acronym. Since the youngest group member was now eighteen years old, and the rest were in their early twenties, they had arguably grown out of the New 'Kids' On The Block moniker that they rose to fame with. More significantly, it was an attempt to dissociate from the stigma that was attached to that name.
The album opens up with "Games (The New Kids Get Hard Mix)," a track co-written by Donnie Wahlberg, that originally appeared on the Step by Step album. Employing hip-hop samples, jazz riffs sung by Jordan Knight, and defensive rhymes by Wahlberg, "Games" was a dramatic departure from their previously clean cut sound. The song received decent airplay from stations nationwide, but was not a major hit on the charts.
The album's second single, "Call It What You Want" is a house remix track, again produced by Clivilles/Cole, featuring an intro rap from Freedom Williams. The song was another that received decent (though not enthusiastic) airplay in North America during the spring months of 1991, and could be considered the "last hurrah" in terms of singles from the group's initial run. The single peaked at #12 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Baby I Believe In You" was released as a third single in Germany, but did not chart.
Although No More Games/The Remix Album was certified Gold in the U.S., the album did not restore the group's former success. Their popularity had waned by the time of the album's release, as the pre-teens who had liked them at their peak were the same audience who would become part of "Generation X", embracing the forthcoming grunge and gangsta rap sounds that ended the dominance of late 80s/early 90s dance/pop.
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