Background
At the time of release the group was very popular and was being heavily merchandised, with everything from pillowcases, to marbles, to dolls, to a Saturday morning cartoon with their name and likeness. Step by Step went to number one on both the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart, with the lead-off title track single topping the charts simultaneously and selling nearly three million copies, making it their highest selling single.
Another top ten single, "Tonight", followed, as the group embarked on their most ambitious world tour to date. After having earned success with Hangin' Tough, the group took a more active role creatively on this album, co-writing and producing several of its tracks. They even started playing instruments on most of their songs.
By the end of 1990, in spite of the album having gone multi-platinum, a public backlash against the group occurred, as is evident with the third and last single, "Let's Try It Again," failing to crack the Billboard Hot 100 top fifty and the album receiving much lower certifications than Hangin' Tough in the United States.
Read more about this topic: Step By Step (New Kids On The Block Album)
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“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
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