A Little Bit Longer 
Artist: Jonas Brothers 
Label: Hollywood
 
Around this time last year, I was wondering why Aly & A.J. weren't blowing up into stratospheric popularity like their fellow kin in Christ, and Disney-nurtured label mates, the Jonas Brothers, were doing. The Milchaka sisters, to my ears, obviously released the musically superior, more textually varied album, yet the Jonases were amassing greater airplay and sales with a record that wasn't nearly so fun and diverse. 

The gals whom I thought to be the Jonases' competition had best come up with a monster their next time out.The brothers' third longplayer, A Little Bit Longer, legitimately rocks far beyond the parameters of the tween-centric Disneyverse that brought them to inspiring pubescent feminine hysteria and the occasional gossip magazine ink. That they do so without tarnishing their rep' as godly guys is all the more inspiring.

Lead single "Burnin' Up" in its Prince-via-Maroon 5 funkiness was a tuneful enough introduction, but not quite representative of the set's other 11 songs. Just as "Play My Music" from the recent Camp Rock telemovie soundtrack prefigured, they're pretty well all about power pop nowadays. 

That is, power pop ala' The Raspberries, Cheap Trick, Off Broadway, 20/20...heck, even a smidgen of pre-Rubber Soul Beatles. Power pop as in that moderately hard rocking sound that's not quite punk, sometimes mistaken for new wave, and a few gradations from metal. The Jonases pop powerfully with genuine authenticity. 

Within what could be for them an exercise in pre-nostalgia, they add enough variety to excuse any accusations of classicism nor formalism. Hear, for example, the unexpected Hispanic breakdowns in "BB Good." They may borrow also take on an English dancehall/vaudeville feel akin to The Kinks or Madness for  "Lovebug," but they vary it with squelchy rocking, too. Joe Jonas also gets bonus points for complimenting the carrier of the song's amorous virus on her modesty. Maybe Joe could inform little bro' Nick's ex-galpal, Miley Cyrus, of the attractiveness of that quality?  

Neither is that song the hardest they get. Witness the minor-key rave-up "One Man Show" and nigh manic "Got Me Going Crazy."  One may wonder whether they're writing from personal  experience very often, but detailing an encounter with a "Video Girl" sounds reasonably within their orbit of acquaintance. And the tweenyboppers buying their music probably revel in their not being like that vid chick.

Titular tune with its piano and tender lyric sounds to be reflecting the hospital time one of the Jonases recently underwent. A closer listen, with ears perhaps influenced by wishful thinking, may reveal an eschatology subtext. 

Just as I would have made the same vcase for Aly & A.J.'s last platter, some may be better able to hear A Little Bit as the solidly rocking outing this is were it not for the act's Disney affiliation. They may be pretty boys, but there's no justification to hate the Jonases' music for it.   

Jamie Lee Rake