Jonas Brothers Albums (6)
'Lines, Vines and Trying Times'
Release Date 6/16/2009
Tracks 14
Label Hollywood
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Subscribing to the time-honored practice of striking when the iron is hot, the Jonas Brothers put out Lines, Vines and Trying Times in June of 2009, making it their third album in one year. True, Lines and A Little Bit Longer were separated by a soundtrack to a concert film, but the flood of product is a true reflection of the peak of the group's popularity, just as how the over-produced, stretched-thin Lines is a reflection of their hectic schedule. Where A Little Bit Longer was built on a strong song foundation, Lines, Vines and Trying Times feels constructed from the outside in, with the concepts coming before the tunes, concepts that all take the Brothers Jonas further away from the fizzy, power pop fun. Lines is designed to showcase a mature Jonas Brothers, who wear their maturation in an increased stylistic range, and fussed-over arrangements that lend this a stiffness of a band well beyond their years. Pop classicists that they are, the Jonases are a bit more comfortable with immaculate arrangements than they are with the expansion, as they fumble through a couple of country songs and "Don't Charge Me for the Crime," a truly bizarre duet with Common where they gamely, lamely affect a hard-boiled pose. Tellingly, most of the forced moments were written in collaboration with outsiders such as Cathy Dennis and Greg Garbowsky, the latter being responsible for co-writing "Poison Ivy," a power pop tune so labored it reveals just how good A Little Bit Longer was. Overthinking and over-production are the primary flaws on Lines, where every point is hammered home by horns transported from the waning days of the Reagan administration. This oddly yuppified production is more Taylor Hicks than Taylor Swift, but the presence of Joe's former girlfriend is felt elsewhere, whether it's in the lyric's heartbroken love songs (as well as a couple of rocking accusations), or how Miley Cyrus stands in for Taylor on one of those country songs. But Swift also comes to mind because she and the Jonas Brothers are trying to do a similar thing: make teen pop that skews adult in its sound and form. The JoBros did it effortlessly on A Little Bit Longer but on Lines, Vines and Trying Times the seams are showing, which makes it a little bit harder to enjoy, even if there are certainly moments where all their craft and charm click, resulting in some fine pop that points out what's missing from the rest of the record. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Music from the 3D Concert Experience'
Release Date 2/24/2009
Tracks 15
Label Hollywood
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Whenever a teen phenomenon hits a peak the cash-in product arrives, and so it is with the Jonas Brothers in 2009. Just three years and three albums after their 2006 debut, It's About Time, the trio has its first top-lined cinematic release, The Jonas Brothers in 3D, a big-screen spectacle in the vein of Miley Cyrus' 2008 Best of Both Worlds Concert, which featured a small set from the brothers. As an album, Music from the 3D Concert Experience isn't as pure a piece of product as Best of Both Worlds Concert, largely because the brothers sometimes get to act like the band they are, occasionally departing from the script, working in some covers and supporting other singers. Whenever they're singing their biggest hits or Radio Disney staples, the music is almost indistinguishable from the studio albums -- well, apart from the rougher, flatter vocals -- but this soundtrack is best when things get opened up a bit: when the brothers give "BB Good" a breakdown out of Billy Joel's 52nd Street, have Taylor Swift on-stage to duet on her hit "Should've Said No," sing with Demi Lovato on the Camp Rock tune "This Is Me," even when they steamroll over Shania Twain's "I'm Gonna Get You Good," which is perhaps a bit flat-footed but still fun. These are the moments that show the Jonas Brothers at their best, while the rest -- including the new studio cut "Love Is on Its Way" -- shows the group as professionals, re-creating recordings on the spot. It's enough to please the fans, if not quite enough to turn into something more than a souvenir for them. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Jonas Brothers: Karaoke'
Release Date 9/16/2008
Tracks 8
Label Disney
See Album Tracklist and Review
'A Little Bit Longer'
Release Date 8/12/2008
Tracks 13
Label Hollywood
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
It's always been a little bit too easy to compare the Jonas Brothers to their teen pop forefathers Hanson, as they're also an adolescent trio of brothers who play their own instruments and write much of their original material, all rooted in classic guitar pop. Initially, this comparison made sense, as their 2006 debut, It's About Time, bore an unmistakable similarity to Middle of Nowhere, but just two years later when the group delivered its third album, A Little Bit Longer, it was clear that the Jonas Brothers were a pop phenomenon in a way Hanson never were. Of course, the Jonas Brothers were helped immeasurably by the marketing might of Disney, who turned the group's 2006 stiff into the bona fide 2007 hit Jonas Brothers through saturation play on Radio Disney and countless TV appearances, including a guest-starring spot on Hannah Montana. By the time A Little Bit Longer appeared in late summer 2008, the trio's popularity rivaled that of Miley Cyrus, but they were better poised for a cross-generational crossover than the former Ms. Montana, as they had a stronger grounding in classic pop. A Little Bit Longer trades heavily on that foundation, so much so that it seems it was designed to be a teen pop album adults wouldn't be embarrassed to play. All the lingering goofiness of their first two albums has been stripped away -- there are no songs about taking rocket trips to the year 3000 -- along with any ounce of fat, which gives the album a mildly mature vibe, particularly when the power ballads surge toward overly dramatic choruses. Fortunately, this maturity doesn't dominate, as there is plenty of levity here -- most appealingly on the mellow shuffle of "Lovebug" and the good-natured dig at shallow groupies on "Video Girl" -- and as most of the record is devoted to punchy power pop like the addictive opener, "BB Good," A Little Bit Longer winds up with a nice, skillful blend of bubblegum and ballads, never tipping too far in one direction of another. It's a nifty trick that's much harder to pull off than it seems -- countless other teen pop bands have stumbled as they attempt this balancing act that the Jonas Brothers pull off so effortlessly here -- but the key to its success is that it is pitched perfectly between frivolous, disposable pop and meticulous mature craft, so as the Jonas Brothers continue to grow they might wind up losing that sense of fun that is integral to their music, but with this record they hit all the notes just right. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Almost a year to the date after their first album, It's About Time, hit stores, the Jonas Brothers delivered their eponymous sophomore record. In that year, the trio departed Daylight/Columbia and set up camp at Hollywood Records (thereby making the debut a bit of a collector's item), and they also matured a bit too. If It's About Time was overtly kiddie in its mentality in certain stretches -- for confirmation, listen to "Year 3000," their first hit and tacked onto the end of this album as a bonus -- Jonas Brothers veers toward the teenybopper market, as its songs aren't quite as cutesy and the sound is just a little bit more muscular than before. The group still sounds quite a bit like Hanson -- not the latter-day journeyman incarnation, but the earlier, fizzier trio that had hits in the late '90s -- and they admit as much in "That's Just the Way We Roll," where they battle and lose to Hanson. That kind of good humor goes a long way here, since it helps give the Jonas Brothers an identity beyond being just Junior Hansons -- although that alone would serve them well, since they're cheerful, good-natured, and, best of all, tuneful. They're best when the tempo is a bit sprightly -- it brings out the snap in their bubblegum, as the sugary, addictive "Hold On," "Goodnight and Goodbye," and "Still in Love with You" prove -- but they're still quite charming when they ease into numbers designed for middle school slow dances, like "Hello Beautiful." It all adds up an album that's tighter and better than their debut, and one that suggests that they not only deserve their popularity on Radio Disney, but they might have the writing and performing skills to last beyond that as well. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It's impossible to talk about the Jonas Brothers and their 2006 debut, It's About Time, without discussing Hanson. Like Hanson, the Jonas Brothers are not only a trio of siblings -- ranging in age from 17 to 13 at the time of the release of their first album -- who play their own instruments and write (some of) their own songs; they have a relentlessly sunny spirit that hearkens back to the classic '60s and '70s pop as heard on Time-Life compilations. If Hanson learned this sound from those original Time-Life collections, the Jonas Brothers picked up the strand from Hanson and then went to Hot Topic, creating a bubblegum type of mall punk that's considerably heavier on the bubblegum than the punk. But that's not the only difference -- where Hanson worked with such hipsters as the Dust Brothers, the Jonas Brothers work with studio pros Michael Mangini and Steve Greenberg, who both did production work for Joss Stone and help bring a similarly slick but consciously classic vibe to It's About Time as they did to the retro-soul of Joss Stone. Despite these hints of commercial punk flair, the Jonas Brothers are at their core Hanson for the new millennium -- and since Steve Greenberg was the executive producer of that trio's 1997 debut, Middle of Nowhere, that shouldn't come as too big of a surprise, but if you go into It's About Time not knowing any of this, it's kind of a shock to hear 11 fizzy singalongs that sound like reworkings of "MMMBop." Of course, that's hardly a bad thing, since at its best, bubblegum has an effervescence that transcends generations, something that the Jonas Brothers come close to achieving here. They're a likeable bunch of kids singing likeable, ingratiating melodies that are perhaps a little too sweet but are still irresistible -- a little bit like a Hostess Cup Cake. And like a Hostess Cup Cake, if you think about it too much, this album does show some signs of being mass produced: the choruses seem a little bit too close to Kidz Bop territory, the professionally written songs about school and girls are too crassly cutesy, and "Year 3000" in particular grates, from its maddeningly vague lyrics ("We drove around in a time machine/Like the one in the film I've seen") to its obsession on their own success and how "This song had gone multi-platinum/Everybody bought our seventh album/It had outsold Kelly Clarkson," as if their seventh album -- which would be delivered in 2024 if they take three years between records -- would still have an impact when they're no longer in their teens, or when there are no longer albums for that matter (never mind that if people are still talking about the Jonas Brothers and Kelly Clarkson in the year 3000, that means their work has lasted longer than Shakespeare has to this day, but that's perhaps nitpicking). But, if you don't think about it too hard -- and, really, you shouldn't -- It's About Time is a fun debut, with more hooks than most teen-oriented music in 2006. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
