Donnie, Danny, Jordan, Jonathan, and Joey.

Say those names to women of a certain age and stripe of pop fandom and no last names are necessary.

Anyone adjacent to those women in the late 1980s and early 1990s may still be partially hearing impaired by all the screaming they did for the New Kids on the Block — Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood, brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, and Joey McIntyre. The group was a true pop phenomenon, selling more than 80 million records and everything on which their teen heartthrob faces could be imprinted, from bedsheets to marbles.

“Five Brothers and a Million Sisters,” the bubble-gum sweet authorized biography by fellow Bostonian and clear superfan Nikki Van Noy, aims to capture what it was like in the eye of the storm for the group, and almost as importantly, what the New Kids on the Block meant and continue to mean to their fans.
“New Kids on the Block: Five Brothers and a Million Sisters”

Five scrappy young kids — four from Dorchester, one from Jamaica Plain — come together in 1985 with visions, not of fame so much as doing something they love that keeps them off the streets and might lead to a better life for their blue-collar families. Hard work, some skill, luck, timing, and peppy soul-pop ditties that address the universal “girl” garner worldwide adulation from fans and scorn from some members of the media and the music industry. Changing times and burnout result in a breakup in 1994. Almost 15 years later NKOTB reunites and its successful comeback culminates in a triumphant, cinematically rain-soaked show at Fenway Park.

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