Next Have A Ball

Jess Harvell | February 29, 2008 9:30 am
What better way to rise on a Friday morning than with a shameless R&B appreciation of involuntary erections by three gentlemen from Minneapolis not named Prince Rogers Nelson. “Too Close,” a song that’s been the bane of vice principals for a decade now, remains Next’s biggest hit. But while the trio has released a pair of albums following 1997’s smash Rated Next, getting jerked by their label has since left their career a little dysfunctional. Perhaps some day their new evil manager Matthew Knowles will stop being so hard-headed and loosen his grip on the band, allowing them to pull out of their contract or at least release the still-shelved Next, Lies, And Videotape, the long-awaited followup to 2002’s slightly limp The Next Episode. (Unless you count 2005’s The Moisture Mixtape, rumored to be renamed by a slightly puritanical DJ Whoo Kid from the band’s original choice, Nextra Lubricated, on the grounds that it was “cheesy even for guys who’d use a word like ‘nextacy,’ which is not even a real word.”) [YouTube]