Hanson: This Time Around

The appearance of Hanson in 1997 felt almost inevitable: The flannel revolution of the early '90s was fading fast, thanks in no small part to an endless string of joyless carbon copies. The pop charts abhor a vacuum of fun anyway, and who better to provide it than a well-scrubbed Midwestern brother act, a throwback to bubblegum music with enough pop savvy to throw in scratching for that contemporary edge After "MMMBop," Hanson could have disappeared, but the group had the best safeguard against one-hit wonderdom: talent. Its album Middle Of Nowhere went deep, filled with catchy songs that the brothers not only performed like consummate pros, but also (mostly) wrote. As the intervening years have shown, anyone who complained about Hanson then did so only because they didn't realize how good they had it. Three years later, bubblegum isn't a novelty anymore; it's the norm, the field dominated not by the Hansons of the world but by far less talented creatures. Can Hanson reclaim the Top 40 throne from the pretenders it helped create If the new This Time Around, the group's first album since Nowhere (not counting a rarities collection, a live disc, a Christmas album, and other assorted cash-ins), can't do it, nothing can. With Hanson not only aging gracefully but actually maturing, This Time Around finds the songs, this time written entirely by the group, sounding even more assured, and lead vocalist Taylor Hanson easing into an adolescent voice reminiscent of Michael Jackson's. There are a good half-dozen potential hits here—most notably "If Only," "You Never Know," "Runaway Run," and the title track—and nothing to be ashamed of among the rest. Aside from a few rougher edges, relatively speaking, and the occasional harmonica part courtesy of John Popper, the sound hasn't changed much, but why should it Frothy and eager-to-please as it might be, Hanson needs to catch up to no one.