Release Round-Up: Week of May 23

Thanks to everyone’s favorite all-consuming pop star Lady Gaga, this week’s releases actually start a day earlier. Think of it as like being in England!

 

New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys, NKOTBSB (Columbia/Jive/Legacy)

Imagine a greatest hits EP for each band, augmented with three bonus tracks featuring all nine boy band members working together like some sort of insane, teenybopper Voltron. (Official site)

The Monkees, The Monkees Present: Expanded Edition / Changes: Expanded Edition (Friday Music) / Monkeemania: The Very Best of The Monkees (Rhino U.K.)

Between The Monkees’ 45th anniversary and a reunion tour featuring three-quarters of the band, it’s safe to say signs of Monkeemania may be found in music collectors. Enter this two-disc hits-and-rarities import compilation, and the band’s final Colgems LPs, presented with the same bonus tracks as Rhino’s original reissues in the 1990s but with new remasters. (Friday Music, Amazon U.K.)

Aerosmith, Tough Love: Best of the Ballads (Geffen/UMe)

Initially a Target exclusive (what great luck!), this collection of hard-hitting ballads like…um…”Love in an Elevator” is now available at all fine retailers. A new Aerosmith album has yet to surface. (Official site)

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Working My Way Back to You (Rhino U.K.)

As Jersey Boys continues its long run on both sides of the Atlantic, Rhino’s U.K. arm issues this double-disc compilation full of hits and some rarer stuff too. (Amazon U.K.)

Roseanne Cash, The Essential Roseanne Cash (Columbia/Legacy)

A double-disc, career spanning compilation from Johnny’s firstborn – and one which licenses tracks from all across her career too! That’s the best kind of compilation. (Official site)

Franke & The Knockouts, The Best of Franke & The Knockouts: Sweetheart Anniversary Edition (Friday Music)

A generous compilation from Friday Music for a band with one hit you may know (“Sweetheart”) and a lead singer who co-wrote two singles you more than likely do know (Dirty Dancing‘s “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” and “Hungry Eyes,” the latter of which is included in demo form on this set). (Friday Music)

Various Artists, ICON (UMe)

Louis Armstrong, The Gin Blossoms, The Mamas and The Papas, Willie Nelson, New Edition, Kelly Price, Conway Twitty, Muddy Waters and Hank Williams get an entry in The Compilation Series That Wouldn’t Die. (Amazon)

“NKOTBSB” Compilation Tracks Revealed

For those of you anxiously counting down the days until The New Kids on the Block and The Backstreet Boys come to your town with the NKOTBSB Tour, the commemorative tour compilation due out next month has a track list.

The NKOTBSB disc was constructed by voting fans, who selected the top five songs from each group (the catalogues of which are both conveniently housed under the Sony banner). The nostalgia of fans has a very strict time limit for each group; four of the five NKOTB tracks stemmed from the group’s Hangin’ Tough album in 1988, while another came from follow up Step by Step in 1990. Likewise, all but two of the BSB tracks could be found in the U.S. on the group’s 1997 self-titled album; the remainders came from 1999’s Millennium.

As for the extra content, two new tracks will be featured – “All in My Head” and current single “Don’t Turn Out the Lights” – along with a newly-created mashup of the group’s biggest hits. Liner notes include new photographs and personal messages from each band over 16 pages, plus a tour poster.

NKOTBSB streets on May 24. Those who pre-order directly from Sony get an instant download of “Don’t Turn Out the Lights.” Hit the jump to read the track list!

Legacy Readies for Boy-Band Mania with “NKOTBSB” Compilation

For teenage girls of two different eras, the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys were the apex of pop music. Both of them were impossibly successful teen quintets created by astoundingly lucky impresarios who had or would soon strike gold with similar acts (NKOTB Svengali Maurice Starr also bought New Edition onto the pop music scene, while now-disgraced BSB producer Lou Pearlman would also make stars out of NSYNC).

When both groups announced late last year that they were collaborating, cross-generational nostalgia among fans was pretty high – and now, as their upcoming tour looms large, we can confirm that there’s going to be a compilation to ride that wave of nostalgia, with the release of NKOTBSB in May from Legacy Recordings.

The premise is simple – ten tracks from the band’s collective catalogue plus an undetermined amount of new tracks featuring both bands. Those old tracks, however, will be up to fans to determine; enthusiasts can head over to an official site to pick five tracks from each band. The selections are painfully obvious ones – nearly all the selections for both bands are Top 40 hits – but there is an “Other” option for both bands, so perhaps fans might make some surprise choices.

NKOTBSB streets on May 23; in the meantime, we’ve enclosed the selectable tracks after the jump, along with their discographical info and U.S. chart positions.