Recommended : New Edition

[purist]

Stuck in the house recently, I recorded the New Edition mini series on BET channel. Now I've watched it I'd say it kinda reminded me of other similar filmed soul group "drama doc's"  ( i.e. The Temptations Story, The Five Heartbeats movie, etc) with the same type of issues affecting their lives - coming from poverty, not knowing how to stop yourself from being ripped off by the music business, greedy relatives and friends/hanger on's, drink and drugs, and what seems ever present in groups as they become more and more successful - ego mania !
Admitting I really didn't know that much about the group outside of Candy Girl and Bobby Brown, I have to say it was very enjoyable watching with some pretty good acting, dancing and of course music. Some of the songs where Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill share the lead vocal duties, bouncing back between them, the interplay between their beautiful voices is nothing short of stellar.
B.E.T showed it in three chunks, each approx 90 mins +, so not something you would watch all in one go. On the sky box it's channel number 187 I think, although it may be something you can find on the net? I gather it only premiered on USA televisons at the end of January so dunno if there's a DVD set yet?

(as an aside, when New Edition fired their first manager, Maurice Starr, he decided to create another group in their image - this replacement group was New Kids On The Block ! )

 

[Daved]

Thanks for that. I didn't know it was on and always enjoy those kind of programmes. New Edition were just a teenage pop band but some of their solo stuff was pretty good. Especially Johnny Gill. Gamechanger from a few years back was excellent.

[Mickey Finn]

Maurice Starr produced Tom Browne at the tail end of Tom's run on Arista ... not his finest recordings. Around the same time he produced 2 albums for the Stylistics ... also not their finest. That would have been around the same time as New Edition. NKOTB came later, and I still get irritated thinking about the next door kids waking me up with the sounds of "hangin' tough" at 8am on a Sunday. Hanging would have been too good for them!

[Mike]

just clocked the trailer, looks better than first thought