Rhapsody Reviews: The Jonas Brothers

Read the review and listen to the Jonas Brothers' new album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times below.

There are at least two qualities necessary for success in Disney's magic star-making kingdom: wholesomeness and versatility -- and the ability to balance both so that kids adore you and parents approve and can stand to hear your album 5,000 times in the minivan. The Jonas Brothers display both qualities in spades on their fourth album. Lines, Vines and Trying Times is a genre-jumping melange of puberty-voiced pop-rock, country balladeering (some of it featuring Miley!), a pinch of '80s pop (that'd be oldies to them, friends) and a lot of this new sort of Chicago-meets-Stevie-Wonder's-harmonica-oeuvre adult-contemporary. The pop-rock is less pop-punk-oriented than it's been on their earlier albums, though the boys still maintain their G-rated edge on '90s alt-style tracks like the enticingly unsettled "Paranoid" (which has an oddly Oasis-esque vibe) and the Weezeriffic "Poison Ivy," which pulls the old "almost say a bad word but instead replace it with a flamboyant guitar strum" gag (the tweens will totally heart it). (Both of those tracks, by the way, also offer slightly warped and/or jaded takes on relationships, no doubt a nod to Joe Jonas's breakup with Taylor Swift. Joe also takes a rather nasty swipe at Swift on "Much Better," a mellow bit of horn-driven '80s pop that explains how "much better" his new lady friend is than the one with "all the tears on her guitar." Ouch. Where's your Disney spirit, boys?) It's all pretty compelling stuff, if at times so eclectic it lacks focus, as if the Jonases were just trying on every pop hat they could get their hands on, rather than really honing any of the styles they experiment with. The track that will totally blow minds (in the surreal, "did I just unwittingly jump into a parallel universe" kind of way) is "Don't Charge Me for the Crime," a collaboration with Common. Yes, Common. Musically, the track is surprisingly not horrible (although it's definitely weird). But for a very "whaaaa?" moment, take a closer listen to the lyrics, which feature a dark rhyme from Common about the state's role in the perpetuation of criminality and greed, followed by a Jonas singing about a friend with bags of cash making him scream so loud "like the females in the crowd." (Wow, what, did that friend mug him for his purity ring or something?)