Review Summary: Cool enough.
Everybody knows the manufactured Disney villain-turned-pop band that is the
Jonas Brothers. Endlessly loved by preteen girls while universally shat on by the music elitists in their glory days, the question on my end about them was "what
is to hate？". If you were looking for mindless pop that made for decent background noise, you could have done much worse, and they actually churned out some pretty decent tunes at times—if you were into that sort of thing. And now we're in the bizarre simulation of reality that is the year 2019, and the Jonas Brothers reunited in February. Shockingly enough, the return was actually warmly recieved, and their "triumphant" comeback
Happiness Begins is honestly not that bad, but again, only if this is your thing.
Despite trading in their guitars and drums in for pop-laden hip-hop beats, the brothers manage to keep their musical integrity surprisingly intact. The hooks and beats are solid enough for the type of music it is, everything flows well, and the structures are coherent. In short, it's fairly consistent with their earlier works despite the instrumental changes. The lyrics are nothing to write home about, although they certainly aren't
bad, per se; it's basically typical harmless boy band lyrics about how much they love some girl—cheesy love songs that get their job done. The production of the various producers is typical pop production; everything's polished and clean as is the standard for pop music. There's nothing of the genius songwriting or musically game-changing short, but if you're looking for that in a Jonas Brothers album, then god help you.
Happiness Begins, in short, is
consistent. The only real difference here is that this album was produced after the boys had been long freed of the chains locked onto them by the Mickey Mouse House. If you're not already sold on the JoBros' usual brand of bland, this won't do anything to change your mind, but if you're looking for another round of mindless, cheesy pop, then you've come to the right place.
