The Bro Show

Is it evolutionary, do you think, or devolutionary, to value a type of music that carries with it an implied sense of shittiness – a value given to it for the simple sake of allowing the listener to access his or her own individual feeling of interpretive entitlement of an art form that seems safer when thought about by not thinking about it? To answer this question, think back to eighth-grade science class when you first heard the name Darwin, turn the volume knob to mediocre and bask in the central air of Anytown, U.S.A. – here come the Jonas Bro-rangutans.

These are the guys who lassoed reality and gave it another name, a name that was becoming unrecognizable to those critics who thought they understood different forms of artistic media but really just understood the stuff that was understandable. The Jonas Brothers used to swim on pavement; they used toes to hear. They were fact when fact meant fiction, but now they’re merely a listing in the yellow pages under “Has-been.”

They’ve always been part make-believe rock band, part spectacle, but the spectacle is now eating itself, and it tastes a whole lot like rotten chicken nuggets eaten by the kids of soccer moms who cultivate in them the originality of a ringtone.

Tue., Sept. 14, 7 p.m., 2010