The New Kids on the Block scored the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with their ballad “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)” on June 17, 1989. The track was released as the third single from their album “Hangin’ Tough” and initially hit radio on April 10 of that year. The track was penned by the New Kids svengali Maurice Starr, who later revealed that he initially wrote the song for Smokey Robinson but decided to give it to the News Kids instead. “When it came to the New Kids, they were a priority. Every song I wrote was going to the New Kids. If it sounds like a hit to me, it’s going to them. Later, I told Smokey the song was for him,” Starr recounts. The New Kids took over the top spot from Bette Midler's “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” After one week, they were succeeded by Richard Marx with his hit single “Satisfied.”