The surname Jonas is synonymous with Madison Square Garden selling out, Times Square shutting down and an eardrum demolition brand of female hysteria. The Jonas Brothers’ songs were guiltily infectious and called unaware girls beautiful years before a certain quintet of British cherubs did.
While Nick Jonas has, since the band’s breakup in 2013, found fame as a solo artist, Joe Jonas has has waded into pop-group territory with dance-rock band DNCE. The group is fronted by Jonas but is composed of an assortment of unfairly talented and rambunctiously wacky musicians. JinJoo Lee (guitar) sports ever-changing shades of every hair color scientifically possible. Cole Whittle (bass) is the perfect mix of Bugs Bunny and E.T. Jack Lawless (drummer) is the shyly reserved adult prone to participation in his band mates’ near-hedonistic madness.
DNCE, therefore, is expressly different. Their debut single, “Cake By The Ocean,” was a hit partly because of their unprecedented style of music. The song does have all the trappings of a radio-friendly pop hit but is impossibly quirky.
The title is a mistaken homage to Sex on the Beach. The lyrics are not Charlie Puth-level cheesy (Superman does have a lot on you, Puth) but are genuinely sexy. The music itself is an original take on a cocktail of funk, bubblegum pop and ’80s feels.
The band’s eponymous album, released Nov. 18, delivers on their early promise to make music that sounds like a David Bowie and Prince musical godchild.
At the same time, the music does not sound like either of those artists. DNCE’s music is pleasantly raucous, conjuring up images of pure hedonism. “Body Moves,” the album’s third single, is charismatically eccentric and erotic.
At the same time, “Truthfully” shows that they can willingly ditch their celebratory aura to resemble a candle-lit, rug-covered room in its heartbreaking sensitivity. It does help that Joe Jonas has mastered a voice that should sound like a perpetual cold but instead is irresistible and seductive, yet raw and honest.
The lyrics possess something most 21st century radio-friendly songs do not have — quality. They are zany but intelligent —even punny. “Cake By The Ocean,” with its lyrics, “I’ll be Diddy, you’ll be Naomi,” regales tales of Naomi Campbell catwalking at Diddy’s behest, which is a true story, if Jonas’s interview with ABC radio is to be believed.
The unbelievably — and there’s no other word for it — chill “Good Day” has DNCE feeling “like a million bucks in the toilet.” At the same time, lyrics like, “you’re holding the car keys, I’m saying, ‘Don’t tease me,’” on the Love Yourself-esque “Almost” are poignantly realistic. “Unsweet,” its lyrics sexually unfiltered, impeccably displays that famed trait of every musical icon — the ability to change and adapt to moods faster than Taylor Swift changes boyfriends.
DNCE is different. There is no thesaurus-influenced synonym for it. The music is often decadent, loony fun but can also be wistful and nostalgic.
The band is quite undoubtedly different, but this attempt at difference does not seem forced. Unlike Zayn Malik’s intentionally sex-riddled Mind of Mine that turned out to be a pastiche of The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, DNCE is unintentionally original.
The ‘A’ is intentionally absent in DNCE, which is perhaps the only attempt at intentional uniqueness. DNCE had the audacity to write a song about being too drunk to spell dance.
DNCE had the audacity to make that song the album’s opening track.
DNCE had the audacity to name that song “DNCE.”
What can be more effing fun than that?
