Joe Jonas – See No More
This is not exactly “doing a Timberlake” is it now…
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[2.89]
Alex Ostroff: The hot one from the Jonas Brothers finally gets around to releasing his solo debut. It’s not quite rock, it’s not quite the rumoured dance album, it’s…well…nothing special, really. It’s a power ballad with all the guitars replaced with synths. ‘See No More’ isn’t actively awful, but there’s nothing, musically or otherwise, that suggests this a single, let alone something catchy enough to serve as an introduction to his solo career.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Joe Jonas has been singing and performing his entire life, you’d expect him to be more than competent at his job, and here, he emotes professionally in a way I’m not cruel enough to deny might have actual emotion. The song’s in the same boat: with all the money and professional handling around him, you would at the very minimum expect a song that is competent and does the job. It doesn’t really do a lot more than that bare minimum, though. As career-sidestepping solo songs go, this is exceptionally conservative.
[6]
Michaela Drapes: There’s moments, especially on the bridge, where there’s a tiny inkling that a good song could be hidden in here somewhere, but it’s being held prisoner by the plodding and overwrought paint-by-numbers production. Not that I was expecting something phenomenal or revolutionary from Joe Jonas’ solo debut, but this is about as generic and inoffensive as a song could possibly be. (Oh, but look — Chris Brown co-wrote it. So much for that!)
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Chris Brown writes Joe Jonas a Chris Brown song: something inoffensively patted together from the scraps of non-offenders like Ryan Tedder, Shontelle and various post-Chris falsettists, perfect for dulling a past abusive or Jonas. Points for Joe doing what he can; more points for the (unintentional) Paula Cole reference.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Pushing and shoving his vocals into the adenoidal land where Ryan Tedder lives, the Cute Jonas records the aural equivalent of what J.C. Chasez looked like in 2001: hair growing out of the wrong places, jewels and studs on every finger, lips begging for a Botox. It does take talent to record so ugly a single.
[1]
Isabel Cole: “Not as bad as my possibly unfair anti-Jonas bias would have predicted” is not the same as “good.” The tinkly background and oh-ohs might accentuate another song, but it’s hard to notice them here under all the whininess. Marked down from a 3 for reminding me of the Dawson’s Creek theme. I don’t wanna wait for this song to be over; I want to hit right now the little red X.
[2]
Zach Lyon: Might be time to consider bumping the male pop star (dives timberlacus) up from “vulnerable” to “endangered.”
[2]
Michelle Myers: Reminds me of that time Nick Lachey tried to have a solo career.
[2]
Jer Fairall: Few teen pop acts ever sounded like they were having less fun than the Jonas Brothers did, but at least someone involved (possibly them, most likely the producers and co-writers) back then kept their music on the glossier side of power pop rather than the faux white-boy R&B favoured by the boy bands of a generation earlier. This has some mildly interesting synth squiggles running through it, but mostly it displays how white pop stars have dealt with avoiding the potential embarrassment of trying to sound black in the recent years, namely with this dreary brand of Ryan Tedder balladic mush, typically used to denote soul without trying for Soul. It makes me all too happy to embrace the Reign of Bieber with open arms.
[3]