Background
By 1987, New Edition was a group in transition. The band members were aging out of their teens into their young twenties, and sought for their image and sound to reflect their coming of age. In addition to employing the famed production team of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (who just the year before had masterminded Janet Jackson’s multi-platinum Control album) to help steer their music into a new direction, they also recruited Washington, D.C.-based baritone/tenor Johnny Gill—who, in 1984, had scored a hit with R&B singer Stacy Lattisaw on "A Perfect Combination." The New Edition members (including Bobby Brown) had actually known Gill since they released their hit "Candy Girl" in 1983 and Gill released his R&B Top 30 hit "Super Love" that same year. They had joked that they would let him in the group if he could improve his dancing skills. Prompting Gill’s entrance into the group was when lead singer Ralph Tresvant considered recording a solo album. To circumvent New Edition being left without a lead singer, Michael Bivins suggested bringing in 20-year-old Gill to replace him. Gill accepted the invitation, joining the group in the spring of 1987. Tresvant, however, wasn’t ready to leave — resulting in New Edition, inadvertently, becoming a quintet again as they began production on their fifth album, Heart Break.
While most of Heart Break features principal vocals by Tresvant, with occasional solos by Ricky Bell, Gill’s voice is significantly displayed as the secondary lead throughout the album. Gill took the lead on the track “Boys to Men” (a song in which the singer initially resisted and resented recording, feeling it too juvenile), which became one of the albums most eminent numbers, despite its never being officially released as a single. Another standout album track was “Competition,” a song written by Tresvant that addresses the disappointment felt over the departure of Bobby Brown, two years earlier.
Read more about this topic: Heart Break
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