Remember when Justin Timberlake first went solo and you were like, “Ugh…an N’SYNC band member going solo? No thank you!” Then you heard “Rock Your Body” and were like, “Oh no! I love this song, what happened?”
Well, when I first heard “Cake by the Ocean” by DNCE, I had no idea who they were at all. I just knew that the kicky song with silly lyrics was catchy as hell! Yeah, I won’t lie, my car becomes a dance floor whenever it comes on. So imagine my surprise when I finally saw the music video come on my TV and low and behold Joe Jonas pops up. At first I thought, “Oh, he must know the band,” and then I realized a few seconds later, “Wait….this IS his band!”
As you could imagine, I wasn’t the biggest Jonas Brothers fan during their most popular time (sorry, Joe, if you’re reading this), but after the initial shock of realizing my new “jam” was the product of one of the said brothers, I rationalized and finally had to admit to myself that I indeed was a DNCE fan, which I suppose makes me a Joe Jonas fan as well.
With all that said, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of DNCE‘s first EP. Swaay is a four song EP packed full of funk, pop, R&B and all the falsetto you can handle. The lyrics – for the most part – don’t get any more serious than the first single, but they also don’t lack in originality; plain and simple, each track is just plain fun.
The final song on Swaay, “Jinx,” does give us a bit of an idea of what DNCE can do in ballad form and still the quirky background vocals that accompany the track keep the sound just a bit off the beaten path.
If this is a preview of what’s to come for DNCE, then I am pretty excited for a full length album and I am not afraid to admit it. Let’s see if Joe Jonas and his new friends can come anywhere close to JT status. My guess is, they’ll do a pretty decent job.
Check out their video for “Cake by the Ocean” down below!
