TITLE: “New Kids On The Block: Greatest Hits” (Legacy)

ARTIST: New Kids on the Block

STARS: 3 Out of 5 Stars

SOUNDS LIKE: 1980s boy band pop

I never listened to New Kids on the Block. But I suppose if you were a pre-teen girl in the late 1980s they would have been the greatest thing since Barbie dolls.

Maurice Starr who produced New Edition, a popular black teenage boy group, decided to try this approach with suburban white kids. He found Boston-Area singers Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight, Jon Knight, Danny Wood, and Joe McIntyre. And The New Kids on the block were born.

The group’s soulful, sugary warm harmony on pop tunes like “Step By Step” and “You Got It (The Right Stuff) made them instant hits.

Now 14 years after their 1994 breakup Legacy and Columbia records are releasing “New Kids on the Block: Greatest Hits.” The release coincides with the group’s 2008 reunion tour and new studio album.

The CD has 14 of their biggest hits plus four bonus tracks. The impressive looking CD package also comes with a poster of the group and a 2008 tour schedule.

Since I never listened to New Kids on the Block, I asked a woman who works in our office who was one of those pre-teen fans what she thought about the group’s new release.

“When I listen to it, it reminds me of the exciting and ridiculous and insignificant time in my life and I was 12 years-old and obsessed with the teenage guys in this boy band,” she said. “When I think back to the actual music I don’t know of it’s really that good but I think the memories of that time are so fun to think about it really doesn’t matter how good the music is.”

“New Kids on the Block: Greatest Hits” might be a must have piece of nostalgia for any girl who grew up in the 1980s. Or, it could introduce a new group of pre-teens to the old school boy band sound.