Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
YouTube pranksters-turned-popstars The Janoskians had the chance to be the first huge Australian boyband stolen from under their noses by 5 Seconds of Summer (or perhaps by themselves when they called their tour "#notaboyband"), but I think there’s still a place for them in pop. Their debut single, released by Sony Australia in 2012, was a brilliantly catchy but generic pop tune called Set The World On Fire. Failing to fulfil their potential on Sony, they shuffled over to Universal Republic and found a new sound that better fits their identity as a group.
The first Janoskians single on Universal, Real Girls Eat Cake, added their brash boyish humour to their music, while keeping in mind their teen girl fanbase (it’s a very different take on the self-esteem-boosting pop trope). But new single This Freakin Song is the first to properly make sense of where The Janoskians fit in the pop scene. Much like what 5SOS have done, it’s a rock-pop sound that harks back to the late 90s/early 00s, but their references seem to be reggae/ska-influenced acts like Smash Mouth and OPM (mixed with the obligatory dose of One Direction) rather than Blink-182 and Busted’s punk-pop. One of the boys even does an autotuned rap about Adam Levine, which is either the best or worst thing I've heard this week… I can't quite decide.
Check out my original Future Pop feature on The Janoskians from 2012 here.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO-M-6Ma7t8]