CD Review
Anyone still lost by the explosive popularity of the Jonas Brothers clearly isn't listening. At least non with the avidity of a certain kind of teenage girl or full-grown woman world Health Organization once swooned over Hanson, 'N Sync, Rick Springfield, Frankie Avalon � insert your era's heartthrob here.
On their smart little rocker of a third album, "A Little Bit Longer," released last week, Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas offer up the ideal, nonthreatening phantasy boyfriend for our macho rock and hip-hop times.
Even as they get senior and more famous, these are not young men flexing their muscles of dominance. On "Longer," when they're not confessing to becoming half-crazed puddles of goo when confronted by the girl of their dreams ("Got Me Going Crazy"), they're pledging allegiance ("BB Good") or mendicancy for forgiveness ("Sorry").
The New Jersey trinity also continue to bolster their puppy love perspective with an increasingly substantial mark of power pop that grows more palatable to the general population with each going. As shrewd students of their genre, the brothers make sure the up-tempo tunes displace at a brisk rate. They pause only long enough to establish melodic line, hook, economic riffage and basic patch, which more often than not runs along the lines of "daughter, I need/want/dig you."
The best of the batch cribbage cannily from performers as surprising as Prince (the chastely erotic howls of "BB Good") and the Smashing Pumpkins (check out the Billy Corgan rat-in-a-cage teenage furore of "One Man Show"). The more obvious influences: the Maroon 5 light funk of "Burnin' Up"; the intriguingly acerbic "Video Girl" has Fountains of Wayne cheek; and the general Cheap Trick-iness of everything else.
No matter how much panting enunciation is put into them, the ballads become increasingly less successful because all that sensitivity starts to take as wimpy when you replace slash-and-burn guitars with pianos and cellos.
But "A Little Bit Longer" is a substantial milestone for the Jonas boys as they cross over from Radio Disney to Top 40.
More info
