The Jonas Brothers are back! And, as someone who is definitely both young and cool, I’d be more than happy to give you a brief tutorial on the history of the group. These three heartthrobs (Nick, Jeremy, and, I want to say . . . Baxter?) captured the hearts of teens everywhere, in the mid-two-thousands, by singing songs about being brothers and, I think, like, going camping?
Let’s start with the obvious question: Are they really brothers? Yes. As far as I know, they are triplets. Legend has it that there was a fourth brother, but Nick ate him in utero, establishing him as the dominant brother. They are from Canada and/or California, and they grew up loving skateboarding and/or Pokémon.
They originally débuted as the Brothers Jonas, a Woody Guthrie-inspired folk group who wrote protest songs about the occupation of Iraq. But their charisma and boyish good looks were destined for the pop charts, and, almost immediately after their rebrand as the Jonas Brothers, they were on the cover of every important music magazine, including Rolling Stone and Facebook.
Their songs answered questions like “What if three brothers sang songs together?” and “What if the Doors had read a lot less Nietzsche?” They paved the way for acts like Justin Bieber, who, apparently, is not a Jonas Brother.
But their cultural influence extends beyond music. I assume they invented Snapchat? And also that thing where people make little shark motions by smacking their wrists together, which I thought was for babies, but I honestly don’t know, so sometimes I do it in a really noncommittal way so that if anyone looks at me strangely I can act like I was just scratching an itch on my wrist with my other wrist.
The Jonas Brothers broke up, in 2013, due to creative differences, namely Nick being much, much more famous than the other two. But all the real Jo-Bro-Bros (Jonas Brother Bros) like you and me knew that it was only a matter of time before they graced us with a comeback album.
Among their most anticipated upcoming singles are “Short-Sleeved Button-Down with Muscles (We Can Pull It Off, You Can’t)” and “Remember When You Were Cool? (We Don’t).” Let’s just hope that they live up to the legacy of their earlier work, which, I think we can all agree, existed.
