New Edition’s fifth LP, Heart Break, is set to be reissued on vinyl. The release will come in two formats, in standard black vinyl and a “colorless” vinyl.
Heart Break marked the Boston R&B group’s return to a quintet after Bobby Brown left the group. For Heart Break, Johnny Gill was added as a fifth member.
The album features seminal production from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and produced a number of highlights like “Not My Kind of Girl,” “Boys to Men,” “Can You Stand The Rain,” and “If It Isn’t Love.” The album is certified double platinum by the RIAA.
The album was also a critical smash, in addition to all of the commercial accolades it earned. AllMusic editor Craig Lytle said the record was an “outstanding album overall,” and that it displayed “New Edition’s growth and maturity due in part to the production work of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and the addition of group newcomer Johnny Gill.”
Washington Post critic Joe Brown said that, “New Edition has grown up visibly and audibly, and it doesn’t hurt that they’ve taken on D.C.’s own Johnny Gill as front man. The lyrics on Heart Break exemplify the changes – as usual, Jam-Terry Lewis spent some time hanging out with the group, then tailored the tunes with an autobiographical slant.”
Jimmy Jam spoke about the album on its 25th anniversary with Rap Rehab. He explained how production for the album fused elements of classic R&B with more mainstream hip-hop. Jam said: “We used a lot of different drum machines. I think that was the first time we used an SP-1200. It was a very popular drum machine with New York hip-hop producers and we wanted some of that East Coast presence on the record. So, a lot of the sonic choices we made were along those lines. Hip-hop was a huge influence at that point in time. We wanted to meld hip-hop into some of the smooth R&B sounds. And they were the perfect group to do it.”
