Nick Jonas is either the second or third solo album from Nick Jonas — it all depends on whether the pre-Jonas Brothers 2004 set Nicholas Jonas or Who I Am, his 2010 album with the short-lived Administration, count — but there's no denying that this 2014 eponymous effort is designed as a statement of purpose, a way to break away from his now defunct gang of siblings. Throughout this gleaming collection of stylish pop-soul, Jonas takes pains to seem modern — he finds space for Angel Haze on the lead single "Numb"; he keeps returning to cool, glassy electronic rhythms, sometimes informed by hip-hop; somewhere he swears enough to earn this album a Parental Advisory sticker, although it's a hard profanity to spot — but his strengths are in his classicism, both as a
songwriter and a blue-eyed soul vocalist. Jonas' voice is slightly thin but he knows how to deploy it with sweetness and seduction (although swagger always seems to elude his grasp), a quality that keeps things lively even when things threaten to slide toward the sleepy (as they sometimes do when the tempos slow, which is why Demi Lovato's presence is welcome on "Avalanche"). For all the guests and modern accouterments, Nick Jonas is at its best when Jonas plays it straight, when he relies on his eternal Prince and Stevie Wonder fixations, which give him not only a fairly rich palette to draw from but provide him with a good direction to channel his melodic skills. [The album was also released with three bonus tracks.]
Born: September 16, 1992 in Dallas, TX
Genre: Pop
Years Active: '00s, '10s
As the unspoken leader of the Jonas Brothers, Nick Jonas attracted legions of young fans with his fizzy, Disney-approved pop songs. The New Jersey native wasn't the group's only frontman — he shared that role with his older brother, Joe — but he was certainly the main songwriter, drawing upon his experience as a childhood Broadway actor as well as his love of classic pop music for inspiration. A performer since the age of seven (the age at which he joined the Broadway cast of Annie Get... Full Bio
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