Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Joe Jonas – Just in Love

It’s the cute one! No, wait, the quiet one! The funny one?


[Video][Website]
[4.88]

Alex Ostroff: A vast improvement over the first single. I like the clattering percussion, and the digital waterfall right before the chorus. I’m not sure how he loves her in “a whole nother language”, and I’m not sure if she‘s trying to change it, or if the mysterious ‘they’ are, but it all sounds very compelling. Still, when he insists that there are “no other words to use” besides “just in love with you”, I can’t help but wonder if he only paid James Fauntleroy II less than his normal rate. It’s called a thesaurus, dude.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Joe Jonas is basically Justin Timberlake without the ambition, which means until he puts out a single as good as “Rock Your Body,” he’s going to be ignorable no matter how cute he is.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: If you’re trying to establish yourself as a credible pop singer in the vein of, oh, Justin Timberlake, it helps to actually be able to sing. Tweens will take half-assed emoting in place of things like breath control and note sustaining, but you either need solid technique or a Weezy guest spot to make it in the wider pop market.
[4]

Jer Fairall: The Jonas Brothers always sounded pained to me, and Joe hasn’t let completely let go of that blue-balled angst yet, but his music has, bumping and snapping like the best Justified single that never was, sinuous and creamy in a way in which the Brothers could never be back when they were trying way too hard to be rock stars.  The video, too, is sexy as hell.
[7]

Brad Shoup: An oppression of voices: pitched low and crowding together, like a team of R&B hostage negotiators. The cowbell groove and slo-mo refrain melody do yeoman’s salvaging work. If you broke Joe down and rebuilt him, you might get a nice freestyle track out of this.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Big whapping beats and a guy whisper-singing in at least three tracks. If it helps, pretend it’s by an anonymous dance-sigher and not a Jonas.
[7]

Anthony Easton: September Vogue visuals, and eroticism by the numbers, not enlightened by the frisson of heresy or good boys gone bad — which is a disappointment because the hype for it suggests more Bertulloci’s The Dreamers than whatever this is. 
[4]

Alfred Soto: “Love is more wild when you’re angry,” the bushy-eyebrowiest Jonas bro avers ungrammatically. So where’s the wildness? Where’s the anger?
[2]

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