Hollywood 1944
Producer: John Fields
Track listing: BB Good / Burnin’ Up / Shelf / One Man Show / Lovebug / Tonight / Can’t Have You / Video Girl / Pushin’ Me Away / Sorry / Got Me Going Crazy / A Little Bit Longer
August 30, 2008
2 weeks
In spite of their relatively young age, the Jonas Brothers were no overnight sensations when their third album, A Little Bit Longer, debuted on top of The Billboard 200.
Nick, the youngest of the brothers, first gained notice at the age of six and performed on Broadway in such musicals as Les Miserables. By 12, he had secured a contract with Columbia Records as a solo artist singing Christian tunes. His 2004 solo album was a commercial failure, but executives at Columbia found reason for optimism. The album featured the young singer performing with his two older brothers, Joe and Kevin. Perhaps hoping the trio would follow in the footsteps of such successful sibling acts as the Bee Gees, Jackson 5, the Osmonds, and Hanson, Columbia signed the Jonas Brothers to the label.
The trio’s 2006 debut album, It’s About Time, stalled at number 91 on the Billboard chart. Disappointed at the relatively weak showing, Columbia dropped the group. Yet a competing label better situated to exploit the trio’s strong appeal to the pre-teen audience had already taken note of the Jonas Brothers. Hollywood Records, part of the Disney marketing machine that includes the Disney Channel and Radio Disney, snapped the band up. Their first album for Hollywood, Jonas Brothers, peaked at number five on The Billboard 200 and went on to sell 1.4 million copies, a worthy successor to such Disney hits at the High School Musical and Hannah Montana soundtracks.
A tour supporting Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus only fueled the fire as well as rumors that Nick and Cyrus were more than simply tour mates. “There was a point in our lives when we were very close,” Nick told Jason Gay in his Rolling Stone cover-story profile of the band. “We were neighbors when we were on tour together. It was good. Just really close. But it would crack me up — I would read these stories online, people saying things that were completely untrue.”
Whatever the case, being linked to Cyrus in any way only seemed to help the Jonas Brothers’ popularity flourish, but the trio was different than their label mate. For one, they all played instruments and wrote much of their own material, making the group seem more substantial than the boy bands of the previous decade and TV-actresses-turned-pop stars.
The Jonas Brothers’ growing maturity was illustrated on A Little Bit Longer in songs such as the title track, in which Nick addresses his battled with diabetes. Rolling Stone‘s Jody Rosen gave the album a four-star review, noting, “Overall, it’s a blast — as assured as any American rock album released in 2008.”
The kids, of course, didn’t need a critic’s approval. In their mind, the rest of the world was finally catching on to the Jonas Brothers. With sales of more than 525,000 copies, A Little Bit Longer easily debuted at the summit, making it the third best-selling entry of 2008, following Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III and Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. Even more impressive — the group’s self-titled debut bounded back to number 10, giving the Jonas Brothers two titles in the top 10. That’s a feat hadn’t been accomplished in nearly a decade, since ‘N Sync pulled it off in 1999, Billboard reported. Of course, ‘N Sync may have moved more units back before the music industry hit the skids, but in a one week battle of chart domination, the nod would have to go to the Jonas Brothers, as Camp Rock, the soundtrack to a Disney Channel movie starring the Jonases, was still lodged at number eight.
Another interesting bit of trivia, A Little Bit Longer topped the chart almost 45 years to the day that another teen sensation first hit Number One. Back then, he went by the name of Little Stevie Wonder. The album was called The 12 Year Old Genius. That album’s hit single, “Fingertips,” features the lyrics, “Just clap your hands/Just a little bit louder.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 30, 2008
1. A Little Bit Longer, Jonas Brothers
2. Mamma Mia!, Sountrack
3. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock
4. Breakout, Miley Cyrus
5. Love On the Inside, Sugarland