2021 Review: “Spaceman” Sees Nick Jonas Drifting In A New Musical World

The fourth solo album from the youngest Jonas Brother integrates modern pop aesthetics and topical lyrics.

2016 was the last year we heard the singular voice of Nick Jonas in his third solo album Last Year Was Complicated, and since then, so much has changed in his life. He met, proposed to, and married actress and singer Priyanka Chopra, he got back in the studio with his two older brothers for the Jonas Brothers reunion album Happiness Begins, he started as a coach on the hit series The Voice, and then COVID-19 struck. He’s returning to a very different music industry as a considerably changed artist with his latest release, the Greg Kurstin-produced Spaceman.

Describing the album’s inspiration, Jonas breaks it up into four overarching themes: distance, indulgence, euphoria, and commitment. Each of these themes reflect the immense personal change he has gone through as a newly married man, and the colossal societal change we all have experienced as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world. Because the subject matter at times can get a little heavy, the album is soaked in a feel-good ’80s pop sound with influences of Eurodance and R&B. After all, pop music is meant to make us feel good, so it’s logical to bring some levity to the album in that sense.