The Height Of The Jonas Brothers

It’s not just films that I cover here (and Oscar contenders, no less) – but all aspects of entertainment and pop culture. I think people who claim they have superior and discriminating taste when it comes to cinema, music, whatever are just kidding themselves. I studied film. My friends come to me for music suggestions. But I’m the first to admit that I have a genuine appreciation for low-brow, guilty pleasure works across all mediums. Let’s face it – if we’re turning to television, movies and music for entertainment, sometimes we just want to be entertained without thought or reason.

Case in point, last night as I settled in to watch the latest riveting installment of Keeping Up With The Kardashians (more on them another day, like when Khloe’s most recent pregnancy rumors get confirmed or denied), after my millionth viewing of Dumb and Dumber, I caught a few minutes of a Jonas Brothers special on E!

Alright. As much as I like accumulating new music, as much as I can debate with Pitchfork’s Best of Decade list because I am familiar with the artists mentioned and have seen many in concert, I do own a Jonas Brothers CD. I see they’re charming, and while they’re not Hanson, they seem to have the Disney formula down. Or so I thought.

In 2008, I couldn’t escape from the Jonas Brothers. Everywhere I turned, even my dreams, I saw their cherubic faces. This over-saturation, I claim, is what led me to buy their physical CD. And it’s pretty good. I can’t deny that these kids do have talent. But in the past year, is it just me, or have the Jonas Brothers taken a hit on the public radar?

Being good Disney mega-earners, they’ve still been everywhere (thankfully, no longer my dreams). They’ve had a new album released, they have a Disney Channel show, they still sold out a tour, they still appear on the covers of all the teenie rags. Hell, one of them even got married! But somehow I feel that maybe in the slightest way, the Jonas Brothers craze is dying down. I’ll admit, I’m more detached from this than at any other point of their career. In all honesty, I don’t listen to Top40 radio, and if a band isn’t generating coverage on The Music Blogs, I’m really not aware of what they’re doing. Unless it’s something scandalous to warrant press coverage, or unless they are mega-stars and their names are inescapable (thank you, Lady GaGa).

One day, I decided to hide my age and attend one of the last filmings of MTV’s It’s On With Alexa Chung with a good friend on her birthday. We quickly learned that everyone else who was there was there to enter a raffle to win passes to see Nick Jonas the following week. He’s releasing a solo project next week. The girls quickly assured me that the Jonas Brothers aren’t breaking up, but that Nick is just flexing his creative muscles. Flexing his creative muscles? Ok then. I don’t care how quickly he went into the studio to throw this together, knowing that a bevy of teenage girls will buy it solely for having his name and image affixed to the cover. Not that that’s what’s even going on here. Nick Jonas seems to be a consummate musician, despite being 16 years old and in what many consider to be a teeny bopper band. He seems to be the Jonas most interested in the art of making music, I’m sure this album took time and dedication.

I digress. With a hiatus of the Jonas Brothers – no matter whether its official or merely imagined – the brothers have had big things happen to them this winter. Big things that will take some time away from the band. Will the fans move on? Have they moved on? I feel that there’s been a decline in “care” amongst the tween set in a year’s time — is that attributed to Justin Bieber?

The E! special posited the JoBro as on top of the world, and that in the next year, they’ll only get bigger. I think they’ve gotten as big as possible, given the fickle nature of their demographic, and the simple fact: what can they do in 2010 that’s bigger?

December 28, 2009. Uncategorized.