Republic
Pop, 2016
Joe Jonas is arguably the hottest one from the now-disbanded group of asexual blow-up dolls for prepubescent girls called the Jonas Brothers. Sure, Nick Jonas has a hot body, but neck up, he’s the guy whose looks are improved tremendously with a paper bag over the head. Alas, this Mr Jonas has, after the siblings called it a day and ditched their pretense of purity, decided to overcompensate for years for celibacy – real or faked, depending on whom you ask – by resembling a greasy tube of smarm whose dribbling is something one may not want to touch, at least without at least six glasses of alcohol to lift one’s fortitude.
So, this brings us to DNCE, the “funk pop, etc (insert popular buzzwords here)” group that he founded with a couple of other guys, and they have recently released their self-titled debut effort. DNCE starts out okay with some kind of Motown rip-off sounding track also named after the group, but things head south – literally – to focus on Joe Jonas’s relentless erection incessantly with tracks like Cake by the Ocean – how did this group win the 2016 Kids’ Choice Awards with a song all about eating out some woman on the beach, I am afraid to even find out – as well as Body Moves, and so forth. Even on the “romantic” Toothbrush, he just has to describe in detail his lady’s state of undress, and I suppose I should be grateful that, for once, it’s her toothbrush in question so it’s not an euphemism for penis. Unless there is something about this lady that is not, er, orthodox, I suppose. What? Don’t be a transphobe, everyone deserves a good rogering now and then!
The whole impression I get from this cheesy, often cringe-inducing album is Joe Jonas leering and licking his lips as he hovers over the shoulder of his victim while dry-humping that poor person like a particularly randy dog. And for the first time, I actually feel sorry for Taylor Swift… well, for a few minutes anyway.
I like Zoom the most of all the songs here, even if it’s about Mr Jonas’s “full tank” waiting to be emptied – gross – as it has a truly marvelous bridge that leads to a spectacularly catchy chorus. Of course, this track is pure Eurotrash in motion, but that’s actually the kind of music that I enjoy, so hey, it’s a party where I am concerned.
To be fair, Mr Jonas is a solid vocalist, and his graceful transition from his lower register to his falsetto can be a thing of wonder. While none of the songs here are innovative or original in any way, they all recall the finer moments of everything from Motown to New Romantics to Eurovision, and the production values can’t be faulted. Truly, if you can overlook the fact that the songs here as basically musical representation of Joe Jonas leering at you while you undress, touching himself in the process, DNCE would actually be a respectable pop album.
