Guru did you ever see the ugly mo fuggas who were the real milli vanilli lol? There is a reason they used those models. No one wants to look at a walking talking dead person.
Dude Guru you are SOOOOOOOO right. NE may have inspired BIIM, but Boyz inspired a whole movement. 90's R&B never would have taken off without them. NE would have been the end of it.
That why I said "mostly forgettable", not forgettable... but "MOSTLY" forgettable. Evolution is when they were just about done. half the album was listenable (the first half) then the 2nd half was a substitute for sleeping pills. LOL
New Edition garbage??? I'm sure Boyz II Men didnt think the same thing when they sneaked into a New Edition concert as teenagers, backstage and sung acapella for them. And even naming themselves after a N.E. song. and later singing N.E. remakes on their album.
New Edition is trash?????? LMAO. New Edition's Heart Break album alone destroys Boyz II Men's catalogue. And the catalogue of singles don't even compare. If It Isn't Love, Can You Stand The Rain, Hit Me Off, and even the branched off acts, like My My My, Poison, Don't Be Cruel, etc....there's waaaay too many to name.
I mean... I feel the same way about Boyz II Men the way you do for NE......a couple songs here and there, but many of BIIM's stuff after 1994 is repetitive AKA the same old song, or boring trash. They made a hot classic album is 1991, a mostly good one in 1994 and by '97 they started to fall off and put out trash. To me they got 2 listenable albums. NE Edition got at least 5. Evolution is a album where it would hard to give a pass too, since many of the songs on there were terrible:
1 "Doin' Just Fine" (good song)
2 "Never" (alright)
3 "4 Seasons of Loneliness" (alright)
4 "Girl in the Life Magazine" (terrible)
5 "A Song for Mama" (good song)
6 "Can You Stand the Rain" (they did an okay job, but they shouldn't of touched this song in the first place)
7 "Can't Let Her Go (LOL)
8 "Baby C'mon" (LMAO)
9 "Come On" (first "baby c'mon", then "come on"?? repetitive and boring)
10 "All Night Long" (terrible)
11 "Human II (Don't Turn Your Back on Me)" (filler material)
12 "To the Limit" (wack)
13 "Dear God" (alright...)
At the end of the day eveybody is not going to like..New Edition,Guy, Boyz 2 Men,Jodeci, U.N.V., Portrait, Shai, ,Intro,H-Town, Mint Condition, Tony Toni Tone, Dru Hill, Next,112 Jagged Edge,ect..
new edition is kinda like wilt chamberlain... the first really big superstar of the nba(contemporary rnb). b2m is like michael jordan... while mj may not match up in EVERY statistical category as wilt, wilt NEVER, and i mean NEVER had the passion that jordan had his whole career. n.e. never sounded as passionate in their music as b2m. the latter could make u feel what they were singin about, i never felt the same way about a new edition song(although i like them)...
New Edition continued to get better as they got older the stuff they did together was better than what they did apart to me but Bobby's last three albums were great King Of Stage was alright and he was 17 and just got kicked out of New Edition on that one so it still sounded like material the group recorded during their bubblegum days but Heart Break and Home Again have some of the best R&B songs on them thanks to the production of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and all of their vocals got better by Home Again even Ronnie could hold a note on Oh, Yeah, It Feels So Good.
Nearly EVERY artist I can think of with 3 or more albums have both versatility AND consistency issues. Hell, most artist have trouble staying consistent for 12-14 tracks on ONE album. This includes both New Edition and Boyz II Men. Hell, even the Temptations had consistency issues. Many critics believe that some of their 70's & 80's material didnt live up to what they did in the 60's. I have to say that after listening to 12 albums by them, I somewhat agree. So I dont understand why everyone feels the need to specifically hate on B2M's when pretty much ever artist has the same problems as them. The point is, at the end of the day, nobody remembers the Temps for their marginal songs. They remember the Temps for songs like "My Girl" and "Just My Imagination", the really great songs. In the same way, B2M will be remembered for "End of The Road", "On Bended KNee", "I'll make love to you" etc. Nobody is saying that they've never made bad songs because they have(and so has every other artist). The reason people like them so much is because IMO, their good-great songs overrides the marginal material by alot plus IMO they had the best vocals for any 80's or 90's group.
As far as NE, I like them, mainly after "Heartbreak" though which IMO was a classic album. One of my favorites of the 80's and up. Every album they had released up to that point was really kiddy pop stuff and when you look back on it, the majoritiy of it isnt really worth much. And lets face it, they were a Jackson 5 rip off. I'm not saying thats good or bad, I'm just pointing out that even NE(who are considered innovators) got inspiration for their group from somewhere else. So it annoys me when people say that B2M is a NE rip off. They did have some good songs in the "kiddy" era though. "Mr. Telephone Man"(which is my favorite song from them in that era) comes to mind but there were a fair size handful of others. They also had the cover album "Under the Blue Moon" but IMO, B2M's "Motown USA" album was better than that. B2M's christmas album was better than NE's also. However I did overall like "Home Again" which is their 2nd best album IMO. Their "One Love" was better than I originally thought it would be but nothing great.. Oh and seriously, Ronnie and Mike need to stop rapping on NE CDs. Annoying as hell.
BBD, had one good album with "Poison"(a New JAck Swing classic IMO) and then they fell off hard with "Hootie Mack" which only had 3 songs worth listening to which were "Something In Your Eyes", "Please Come Back" and "Lost In the Moment". Hell, on that album they had not 1, but 2 songs about weed and even one about a 16 year old girl. WTF? The "BBD" album isnt even worth mentioning.
Bobby and Johnny had good and successful solo careers but I didnt really feel Ralph's much at all.
As far as the "Can you stand the rain" cover. I think everyone here knows that song is my favorite, and honestly, I'm glad that if anyone covered it, it was B2M. It was a great vocal performance and interesting to hear them "remake" the music with just their harmony(especially Mike's parts). It was also nice to hear them put in some interesting riffs where NE had not put them. I honestly like both versions about equal. My mood determines which version I feel like hearing.
I like both New Edition and Boyz II Men, but Boyz II men is my favorite and I know more about them than I do N.E. I can't believe I only have 1 N.E album "Home Again". I love that album, but I do remember their earlier stuff from when they were little kids and sounded like Jackson 5.
I can agree that their later albums are much better albums from N.E. Heartbreak on up. In my opinion all of them make great solo stuff.
Truth be told, Johnny and Bobby's albums are the only ones worth buying. "Poison" and "When Can I See You Smile Again" are solid, but BBD was kinda lame other than that.
Man, I missed all the solid New Edition/BIIM discussion. Great post by the way Havok. People who didn't read it due to it's length, definitely check it out. It's got a lot of good points in it
