posted 09/17/2008 (Wed) @ 07:18 pm
>>> Music Reviews
Jonezetta - Cruel To Be Young (2008)
High Fructose Pop Rock
- Wide Awake
- Holding Onto You
- Busy Body
- Paint and Picture
- Sick in the Teeth
- Cruel to be Young
- Fur Coat (Roaming Like Animals)
- Valentine
- Untitled
- The Queen City Song
- I Watched You, Out From Your Window
Power pop is the aural sunshine in anyone’s day. Jonezetta bring the sunshine… only to be called everything from dance-rock to alternative to indie. Add to that the curse of The Beatles, who set the benchmark for which all subsequent sunny guitar pop must be judged, and it becomes clear that writing power pop for a living can’t be much fun.
The easiest way to put their misery out of your thoughts is to listen to the record. “Hold Onto You” will lift your spirits for sure, with its absolutely soaring quality. Like most pop performers, the band sounds tight, which serves them well, even when fielding more wannabe “sloppy” and angular fare as “Sick in the Teeth.” The title track is a special treat, even if we’ve all heard it before—a jubilant flotilla of guitars like a chorus of angels, grandiose piano chords, lots of “ooh aah” vocals and a chorus that tarballs to the thoughts in your head so that everything reminds you that it’s “Cruel to be Young.”
The token acoustic-tinged number (”Fur Coat”) is mercifully short at just over 2:30; its brevity is the only thing going for it. Other irritants on “Cruel To Be Young” include the jarring, non sequitur leftovers at the end of some of the tracks, which beg for a “Next Track” hotkey to be close at hand. Unless you enjoy doing the record engineer’s job and decide to manually edit them out, they completely disrupt the flow of an otherwise fun, high energy collection of songs.
Jonezetta are not highly original, but the album is enjoyable enough if you dig guitar pop. Though not quite as saccharine nor unique, they easily share borders with The Delays (bright sunshine-y digitally-enhanced pop) or Midlake (piano heavy, brooding pop rock). Maybe a few bits of Coldplay in places.
As for the “dance rock” label… well, it depends on what kind of dancing shoes you wear, but this is as easily danced to as pretty much any pop record. Under the Influence of Giants would definitely fit the bill if you’re after involuntary body movement from non-dancers, though.
Tags: pop, power pop, vocalists
