It’s pretty safe to say that I have a pretty eclectic music taste. While I get a bit tired of people who say “I listen to just about anything” when you ask them what kind of music they like, I really am one of those people.
At any time of the day, I could be listening to classic rock, modern pop hits, an instrumental score from the movie I just saw or even on the very rare occasion, country.
Growing up, this wasn’t the case though.
My MP3 player was full of mostly rock songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s, with a good amount of Jimmy Buffet thrown in for good measure, all music that I got from my dad.
With that being the case, the one outlier and the first band that I found myself was always the Jonas Brothers.
I can remember watching the Disney Channel as a kid and waiting for the commercials just because they would play shortened versions of Jonas Brothers music videos like a Kidz Bop version of MTV.
Their videos rocked and if it meant watching reruns of “Hannah Montana” with my sister to get to watch them, it was totally worth it.
Their second album, “Jonas Brothers,” was the first album I ever bought on this new thing back then called iTunes.
It was a big deal for me.
Not only was I using my own money to buy a CD, I was doing it online, and I was going to be able to listen to it whenever I wanted on my hand-me-down iPod classic.
Granted, I already had the physical CD and I had ripped it to my MP3 player with Windows Media Player, but that’s beside the point.
Plus, I had no idea how to get a CD into iTunes without help from my parents.
From that point on, I had Jonas Brothers pumping through my earbuds whenever I could.
Songs like “SOS,” “Burnin’ Up” and “Year 3000” became my anthems.
The rap at the end of “Burnin’ Up” was actually the first rap I ever learned, and I can proudly say that I still know every word.
As I grew up and they broke up, the Jonas Brothers constantly provided the soundtrack to many a long night driving around with my friends as we screamed the lyrics of “Kids of the Future” at the top of our lungs.
That was the thing that made the Jonas Brothers so special to me; they were ubiquitous.
My childhood obsession came to a head this past week when my sister and I went down to Pittsburgh to see them in concert.
You see, she was just as big of a fan as I was back in the day, and we both were really bummed out when they broke up.
Not only were we not going to get any new Jonas Brothers music, but we would never be able to see them live, something that we really wanted to do.
So when they dropped their latest album, “Happiness Begins,” and announced that they would be going on tour, I called up my mom and begged her for tickets for myself and my sister for our upcoming birthdays.
To our luck, she agreed, and I got to enjoy an absolute blast from the past as I brushed up on all the songs that were played on repeat in my childhood.
Not only that, but I had an entire new album of songs to listen to.
Needless to say, my sister and I both had a great time, and I can’t recommend seeing them enough.
After so many years of waiting, it was definitely worth it.

BENJAMIN HAYLETT
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