This New Jersey boy-band of brothers’ third album is decked out with electric guitar, synth keyboards, heavy drumming, and songs constructed around catchy hooks, choruses and designed-for-dancing verses.

It has all the hallmarks of a rock and roll album, but for a key difference: Rock music has at its heart an unseemliness, an unwholesomeness. Rock music is about rebellion and recklessness; it’s about breaking boundaries, defying restrictions, having fun doing things you shouldn’t be doing.

‘A Little Bit Longer’, the latest from the Jonas brothers, is to Rock what the Disney Channel is to HBO. The music is as clean-cut as a choir practice. Although the songs themes are familiar shadows of Rock classics like ‘let’s-have-fun’ (”BB Good”), ‘love-gone-wrong’ (”Sorry” and “Video Girl”), ‘I’m-so-awesome’ (”One Man Show”) and all combinations and variants thereof, the fact is, this album doesn’t ever come close to rock-and-roll edginess.

Yes, I understand that the Jonas Brothers’ target demographic is tweens and teens. Yes, I realize their music fills a void in the all-important Candy-Coated Bubblegum Pop genre of music. However, the petty optimism and tender gee-whiz sentimentality robs the music of any of the sincerity of a good Rock album. This album doesn’t as much play to its target audience as much as it panders, somewhat condescendingly, to them.

It’s a shame that all it takes is a pretty face and some musical talent to enthral music fans. It’s also a shame that the obvious talents, that are the Jonas Brothers, took the clean-cut boy-band route to musical superstardom. This sort of fame and popularity is fleeting, and when the Brothers finally do get around to wanting musical sincerity, they’ll find a music world unforgiving of their Boy Band past. For every Justin Timberlake that survives and surpasses their respective Boy-Band era, there are ten more who never get taken seriously again.

The Jonas Brothers: A Little Bit Longer
Hollywood Records
Steve’s Rating: 6/10

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