Record Label: Blue Duck Records
Genre: Pop
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link

So I’m pretty sure the Jonas Brothers are following me around. I’m not exactly sure how it started, but my girlfriend and I started to notice all kinds of things related to them over the past month or so. And all this without knowing quite who they are – we’re pretty sure they’re this decade’s Hanson – or having heard a single note of their music. We were in New York last week walking past Times Square, and there was this mob of teenage girls in front of MTV, and my girlfriend made some kind of comment like “wouldn’t it be funny if this was for the Jonas Brothers?” She seriously spoke too soon. Because they all had photos of the three barely pubescent singers and were screaming at the top of their lungs. Now it should be noted that on this particular day, it rained quite hard in several intermittent bursts. These girls were determined to see the Jonas Brothers through a glass wall 20 feet above and 50 away (despite probably being much closer if they actually just watched TV). That is commitment. I have to hand it to any band who can make girls likely get pneumonia from extreme weather conditions just to be within an 100 foot radius of them. And all of it without actually having their music really be that famous. I still haven’t heard what the Jonas Brothers sound like, but I imagine it’s more or less like the Gallery.

On the cover of the Gallery’s album, there are four well-groomed teenagers posing in more or less the same clothes and style that the Jonas Brothers did on all those posters that seemed to make girls swoon. Now I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure that these guys are trying to target the same market as the Jonas Brothers. Therefore I assume that the Jonas Brothers sound exactly the same as the Gallery; they play inoffensive guitar pop with bright hooks, cheesy lyrics, and very few if any surprises. That’s not to say it’s bad, but I have unfortunate news for the Gallery: they’ll never make it as long as the Jonas Brothers are around.

The problem with Jonas Brothers fans is that they don’t actually like the music as much as they like the three seemingly perfect rock stars that pose so eloquently. The music is secondary, and it really doesn’t matter at all. These girls aren’t music fans. In fact they’re exactly the type of girls whose reading material as they grow up will be People and Us Weekly exclusively. These are girls who seem to only care about celebrity and the idea of status. There will be no second best for them; it’s Jonas Brothers or nothing. Nothing will ever measure up, not their boyfriends, not the Gallery. So they’re more or less screwed into sounding (probably) and looking (definitely) like a far more popular band who will steal all thunder that these guys are trying to make. I’d be sympathetic, but I can’t quite get my hair to look quite as good as theirs, and quite frankly, their music isn’t that good. Not that the music matters anyways.

Bottom Line: They’re no Jonas Brothers.
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