Music: Pop Stardom for Fun and Profit

The New Kids on the Block ride a hot new trend: success and salesmanship as part of the act

"Growing up in Boston and dancing in the streets," says Danny Wood, "you see a lot of things." Nothing like this, though. Not even in Boston.

It's as if the concert stage were a reef in some Sargasso Sea of raging teen hormones. Wood and his four pals, collectively known as the New Kids on the Block, dance, sing, break and rap together while thousands of mostly pre- and early pubescents trip over their own ecstasy. The audience shrieks. Screams. And clutches at its authorized New Kids T shirts ($20). Jangles its authorized New Kids buttons (three for $8). Finally departs,...

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