Jonas Brothers Are Sugary Sophomores

What if the members of Green Day had been Mouseketeers? My guess is they probably would have sounded a lot like the Jonas Brothers, the latest Disney phenomenon to attack the album charts' upper reaches with squeaky-clean, bubblegum-punk anthems. It looks like High School Musical's Zac Efron and Hannah Montana's Miley Cyrus are going to have to get used to rubbing shoulders with these three brothers from New Jersey.

What you see—and hear—is what you get when it comes to the Jonas Brothers: three boy-next-door types harmonizing about their hopes, dreams and disappointments, mostly as they relate to the opposite sex. Kevin (19), Joe (18) and Nick (15) major in infectious-but-innocent tales of young love. So much so that many of their lyrics would have been very much at home in the bebop songs of the '50s. Kevin says of the band's second, self-titled release (which recently debuted at No. 5 on the album chart), "It's about girls, straight up—what they have either blessed us with, done to us, hurt us, all of the above."

IM: We're Through!
Thankfully, unlike many musicians courting the teen market these days (Kelly Clarkson's emotionally raw performance on her latest, My December, comes to mind), the Brothers never get too bogged down in romantic misery and melancholy. Joe says, "We just want to be rock 'n' roll, but [we want] to be positive at the same time [to] let people know that it's not about feeling down all the time."

That kind of sentiment doesn't prevent the band from including a few breakup songs, a staple in this genre. But even the worst losses are never crippling. The first single, "S.O.S.," finds a young man on the receiving end of bad news ... via an instant message: "So this is where the story ends/A conversation on IM." His response—"I gave my all for you/Now my heart's in two/And I can't find the other half/It's like I'm walking on broken glass"—is as angst-filled as anything gets on the album.

And unlike, say, Carrie Underwood keying her ex's truck in "Before He Cheats," the young man on "S.O.S." seems to have worked things through by song's end. It's hard not to crack a smile when he tells his former flame, "Next time I see you, I'm giving you a high five/'Cause hugs are overrated, FYI." A high five? This is High School Musical territory indeed.

Tracks end up dividing themselves pretty evenly between end-of-the-road relationship songs and those on the road to happily ever after. "Just Friends" is pure sugar as a boy daydreams of marrying his best friend, whom he's secretly crushing on. And "Hello Beautiful" is an aw-shucks ballad about a boy missing his girl that reminds me a bit of Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah." A pining boyfriend gushes, "I could go across the world/And see everything and never be satisfied/If I couldn't see those eyes."

Role Models' Role Models
All in all, it's sweet stuff that never ventures beyond high fives, a first kiss and a hug or two. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mainstream album released today with fewer content concerns than the Jonas Brothers' sophomore effort.

One reason for that could be the influence of the boys' Christian upbringing. Their father has served as a pastor and is the co-founder of Christ for the Nations music. And when asked in an online chat session who their role models are, Joe singled out his dad's positive influence: "I would say for me, probably my dad. He helps us out and encourages us."

That's great. Lightweight. But great. Still, anyone looking for evidence of that faith background in the Brothers' music will come up empty. The closest this CD gets to spiritual territory is googly-eyed love, when a guy describes his girl as "a glimpse of heaven" and "my paradise" on "When You Look Me in the Eyes." And that opens the Jonas Brothers up to the criticism that they focus a bit too much on romance's saving power, neglecting to allude, even obliquely, to the God who is the author of true love.

As content conundrums go, that one is much more navigable than the explicit sexual references and indulgences that drench so much of popular love songs today. So for now, at least, we don't have to hold our breath when Joe Jonas says, "We're aiming for people our age. But we also want to get kids younger than us."