Sunday, December 20, 2009

Finally the Noughties: you've got the lovebug

Right, let's get you started with some 'Finally the Noughties'. The three bros that all dem girls rave around screaming for: the Jonas Brothers (+ general Disney teenies mania).

I can't remember when exactly I discovered this band (funny how it feels weird describing them as band – will get onto that later). Possibly 2006? I definitely remember the mainstream rage starting in 2008. But I'd discovered them back when I was looking for 'Year 3000' by Busted, and this came up as one of the results. So when the mainstream wave of Jo Bro love came along, I was thinking 'erm, why is it re-starting now – haven't they been around for ages alreads?' Apparently not.

So as 'S.O.S.' swept across the country I was smugly thinking 'muahahaha I've known this band for ages'. I was so obsessed that – get this – I got our band to play 'S.O.S.' At our school's Bands Night. Yuh-huh.

The day came when I was blessed enough to see them live... at HMV Oxford Street. 



Wow. I went very early in the morning to try to get a wristband, which would have allowed me to get right up close to them. I missed it by 2 people (what they do is ensnare people to come and queue and actually have a specific cut-off point, after which they say 'no, we're right bastards cause we asked you to get up at 6am so you could come get this wristband, and now we're not giving you it'. Ok, what they said is 'we've had 200 people now, you came too late'.)

I went anyway, but couldn't get to the front. Even when surrounded by a hoard of twelve-year-olds – no, I do not have twelve-year-old taste, the twelve-year-olds have my taste – in that crammed camera flash flash flash kind of environment, a rejuvenated love for Jonas Brothers was rising inside of me. I'm not joking. By that time, I'd already established my obsession for the younger Jonas god that is Nicholas Jonas. Slightly paedophelic? I don't think so.

They took ages to come out. And this is why:

'Dude, let's go out' – Kevin

'Nah man, let's not, let's make them wait [lazes around on a chair]' – Joe

'Come on dude, they're our fans out there!' - Kevin

[Nick is silent and admires himself in the mirror]

Or something. Admire mine and my friend GM's amazing imaginations. We were bored, OK?

So the one thing that sticks in my mind the most is this: seeing them standing on the stage for what must have been at least a whole 60 seconds, not doing anything, apart from posing. For the flashing cams. Lord help our music industry. I sincerely hope that's their manager making them pose, and not their own egos looking for some more fangirl appreciation, as if they didn't get enough already. Yep, I'm that desperate to keep my idea of the Jobros pure that I'd be willing to accept the corruption and heavy and fake staging in the music industry.

I bought their album ('Jonas Brothers', I think?) after I saw them, and was, at first, a little iffy about it. I'm VERY iffy about it now. But I love it regardless. A year later I bought the album 'A Little Bit Longer' and returned it. I realised that my love for the Bros had subsided and that the point when I was obsessed enough to buy their albums had passed.

That's not saying, at all, that I don't like them. I LOVE THEM. Even if I haven't been to a proper live gig. Or if I don't have all their albums. Clearly I'm not obsessed. I can still get really excited about them if they come up on a music channel (which I no longer have access to since my Sky box has decided to be a right anus and now does not work any more) and even today harbour a love for Nick Jonas strong enough that I have an A3 poster of him holding a guitar, as well as a calendar page for November which is decorated with a lovely pic of them three wearing sunglasses (thanks to my friend GM).

 
Thinking of this video made me see how much they care for their fans.

...Er, what?! Do they? Even I have to say: I think fame may have changed them, even if they themselves do not realise it. Or perhaps it's just growing up? How can you tell whether they're the way they are because of the fame or because they are just older and less innocent and therefore less loveable? As products of the crazy Disney teenies mania, which also includes Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Selina Gomez, they will have to work very hard if they want to shed that stamp off of themselves. I know that the world is currently starkly divided into the JOBROS camp and the .... I don't even know what the other camp calls themselves. Granted, if this other camp dislikes the fact that they are just a commercial product as opposed to a band, then that's fair enough. Too often do I see people who dislike them just for the sake of disliking them, either because too many people like them, or because everybody around them dislikes them. Or because they're just music snobs (yeah, sorry fellow snobs, I can wholeheartedly and happily express my love for them).

So I leave you with my Top 3 Jo Bros songs. This was excruciatingly painful to select: 'S.O.S', 'A Little Bit Longer', 'Inseparable'.

Ok no, I can't do this, here's a list of my top 10 Jo Bros songs:
-         S.O.S
-         A Little Bit Longer
-         Inseparable
-         Lovebug
-         Hold On
-         Goodnight and Goodbye
-         What Did I Do To Your Heart?
-         Pushin' Me Away
-         Tonight
-         Video Girl (FTT note: I am actually one of the video girls they talk about in that song)

Right, so you're permitted to puke now.

xxxx

2 comments:

Mary said...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

The Jonas Brothers need to fuck off. Or something. And joe dancing like the single ladies video is just ultimate cringe xx

ikp said...

Lol, Mary SHUTUP you're just jealous of his dancing skills and you KNOW IT