Over the past decade, R&B has been engulfed by hip-hop’s brash sound and style. By hip-hop standards, these guys are geezers.Īnd it’s by hip-hop standards that New Edition will be judged. Bow Wow, Lil’ Romeo, and Chingy are young enough be Bobby Brown’s illegitimate kids. In the 21st century, Combs and New Edition face a fickle urban audience, one that is constantly shifting its sights to younger, hipper acts. The question is, is anyone still listening? As proof, we have One Love, a sharp, spirited release that lives up to the legacies of both New Edition and Bad Boy. The fact that Combs is going out of style, however, doesn’t preclude him from gathering the resources needed to put out a quality product. Bad Boy’s ’90s hit-making machine, stocked with talent-challenged acts like Total, Mase, and Combs himself, died with Biggie Smalls and has yet to recover. Diddy” Combs’s Bad Boy label, since both Combs and NE are struggling to regain their magic touch. It seems fitting that the group would find refuge on Sean “P. Eight dry years and innumerable wedding band night terrors later, a Brown-less New Edition is back for one more try. But soon afterward, Brown, still under the delusion of a viable solo career, balked at the idea of having to divide his income with the group. Not one, not two, but four (five if you include ABC’s dismal follow-up album) sophomore slumps.Ī sense of reconciliation (read: desperation) brought about a reunion of all six members of New Edition for 1996’s Home Again, which became their first album to top the Billboard Pop Charts.
Then, quicker than you can say “Hootie Mack”, it all fell apart. Plus, Bivins’s eye for talent had led to third-generation sensations Boyz II Men and (shudder) Another Bad Creation. Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe formed the equally popular and trend-setting Bell Biv Devoe.
Although the group had dissolved, Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant, and Johnny Gill had released successful solo albums. Telephone Man”, “Candy Girl”, “If It Isn’t Love”, and “Can You Stand the Rain”. They’d released a string of hit singles, including “Cool It Now”, “Mr. They had completed a six-year run of celebrated albums, culminating in their most mature and accomplished to date, 1988’s Heart Break. The year was 1991, and New Edition ruled the world.
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