New Edition Reunites for Album, Tour
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – New Edition, the first group to popularize the fusion of pop, R&B and hip-hop known as “New Jack Swing” plans to release its first album in seven years early next year, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy record label announced on Monday.
The group parted ways in 1987, but reunited to put out the 1996 album “Home Again,” which made it to Number 1 on the R&B charts.
The group’s smooth falsetto sound spawned hits like “Candy Girl,” “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Cool It Now” and established them as the kings of black bubblegum rock in the 1980s.
Their stratospheric success, especially among teen-age girls, prompted music studios to try to replicate them with clones like the Backstreet Boys (news – web sites), Boyz II Men and New Kids on the Block.
The reconstituted New Edition, minus Bobby Brown, plans a 2003 tour, album and a bio-pic to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Candy Girl,” the 1983 hit that made stars of the boys from the Boston projects who began singing together for pocket money. The record for Combs was expected to be out in next spring.
Further details were not disclosed.
The members of New Edition — Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant — sold a combined 31 million albums as soloists and bandmates and laid the foundation for the musical style called “New Jack Swing.”
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