…Sometimes, It’s a Little Overwhelming. [Newz]

Wow.

How things have changed. Just when I think there can’t be a greater deluge of coverage for the Guys, down it pours. This Camp Rock premiere week has been something else!!! Don’t underestimate the power of the junket.

So…between monitoring/purchasing their music releases on iTunes, reading the daily blogs on MySpace, watching new videos on YouTube and reading all these articles (plus a draining week at work, for me) – not to mention the anticipation for the movie and premiere of the official Burning Up video on the Disney Channel – there has been precious little time to process it all. Breathe.

Now listen to reason, from the grand old New York Magazine’s Vulture, which always speaks the hilarious truth:

On Friday, they’ll rally their armies with their latest propaganda film, Camp Rock, premiering on the Disney Channel at the revolution-friendly time of 8 p.m. Next, they’ll launch a 46-date summer tour of North America (footage of which will be shot for their forthcoming 3-D concert movie), release their third album A Little Bit Longer on August 12, and then begin shooting their own television show, J.O.N.A.S., a “comedy-adventure spy series” (while stealing nuclear secrets under the guise of being actors on a scripted TV program, presumably). At this point, any resistance is inadvisable, as their absolute victory, and subsequent enslavement of all humanity, is now certainly inevitable. But will it be enough for the Jonases? “I think we live our lives the best we can,” Kevin Jonas tells the Times, ominously. “We’ve grown up with the idea that even when you’re at the top, act like you’re at the bottom.” They will crush you. – “You Are Now Entering the Season of the Jonas”

Better? I thought so. Now, here are a few of the choiciest nuggets distilled and aggregated from the best and most interesting of the press…(after the jump!)

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

Jonas Brothers living a dream by Gretchen McKay

On some of the shriller fans (but what do they think about bloggers? haw haw)

If anything, they find all the adulation kind of, well, strange.

“Honestly, we look at each other and say, ‘Why are they screaming? We’re right over here,’ ” says Kevin, laughing. “But we love it.”

NEW YORK (freakin’!!) TIMES

Summer Advisory: A Jonas Front Looms by Edward Wyatt

Just an interesting, in-depth piece:

“It was extraordinarily good fortune for us,” Gary Marsh, the president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, said of his company’s discovery of the Jonas Brothers. “We have so many other opportunities and extensions that we can use to launch and promote a group like this. And given who they are as people, their brand fits wonderfully with the Disney brand.”

Who the Jonas Brothers are is likely to go a long way toward determining whether they turn out to be just another boy band or are able to turn their considerable musical ability into long-term staying power.

…

Despite their seeming overnight success, the Jonas Brothers have labored in the lower ranks of the music world. As recently as 2005 they were playing 20-minute sets with two other bands as part of casting-call events for a tween girl band.

“It helps that they struggled a while before it started to work,” Mr. Jonas said. “They’ve carried their own equipment. And when you’ve seen 10 people in a concert hall, you’re genuinely thankful that a room full of people would show up for you.”

USA TODAY

Celeb Watch: Jonases get a good view from the top by William Keck

On that sensational finger jewelry:

All three brothers wear purity rings as symbols of their commitment to remain virgins until marriage. It’s a topic they clearly would prefer to keep private.

“The boys made a decision when they turned 12 years old to put those rings on their fingers,” their father says. “We didn’t give them these rings as a pledge of perfection, but as a reminder of values. Our hope is that they’ll always know that there’s a good, right way to treat the opposite sex.”

Also in this article: great anecdote of the slightly bumpy casting ride to Camp Rock, and future career goals.

And, best of all, a great video in which Joe invokes some impressive social values (Yes, even more than usual! Thus validating my devoted fandom, LOL. The quote was referenced in OK! Magazine – What the Jonas Brothers Look for in Girls! Though I sort of suspect he is describing himself, even if he doesn’t know so.)

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Disney’s keen on making more ‘Camp Rock’ with Joe Jonas by Richard Huff

Execs lavish Joe with praise…meanwhile he ponders their shelf life:

“He has that Mick Jagger image that he portrays on stage,” [Disney Executive Gary] Marsh said. “It’s who he is, he’s a performer. He’s a very natural performer. He’d never really acted before. I thought he did a fantastic job. And honestly, it’s a pretty nuanced portrayal.”

…

“That’s one of the things, being in a band — we wonder when our fan base’s going to stop caring. When are they going to get over us?” [Joe] said. “At the same time, our fans are going along for the ride with us.”

HUFFINGTON POST

“Camp Rock”: Another Disney Channel Summer Blockbuster by Ed Martin

A smart person gives us some praising context (more for the Disney Channel than the Boys, but let’s enjoy it anyway!):

As a member of the television generation, my childhood memories are filled with moments from broadcast shows that were created for and targeted to kids when I was a kid, on Saturday mornings and in primetime. More recently (in the Eighties and Nineties), ABC strived to program stridently kid-friendly shows at 8 p.m. (Full House, Family Matters, etc.), even branding an entire Friday night block around the genre (known as TGIF). But interest in kids shows declined near the end of the last decade when Hollywood suddenly filled up with a generation of twenty-something writers who seemed to have no working knowledge of childhood or how to communicate with children. (How might we explain so grievous a creative collapse? Were these writers hatched at age 21?)

Thankfully, Disney Channel has made childhood and adolescence cool again. Given the outsize success it is enjoying with shows that cost less, last longer and make more money than much of what we see on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and The CW, I wonder why broadcast television largely continues to ignore this burgeoning profit center, one that seems only to become increasingly empowered by the growth of digital media (where kids get all their essential entertainment info these days) rather than increasingly compromised by same?

Do you think I’m overstating the case? Then consider this: There will be more conversation about Camp Rock in more households this weekend between kids, tweens, teens and their parents — the latter largely fixed at the center of the all-important 18-49 demographic — than there will be about any of the new series the broadcast networks present next season. The same may be true of the upcoming Disney Channel series J.O.N.A.S.!, starring you-know-who.

CNN

Jonas Brothers own the summer by Doug Ganley

On their funky Jonas ways, Kevin says:

…I’ve never really actually considered him [Nick] “little brother,” though, ever.

… We just have a weird dynamic in our family that most people don’t have, and I think we just really appreciate each other all that way.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

TELEVISION REVIEW: ‘Camp Rock’ by Robert Lloyd

Shane — whose negativity was meant only to “keep the poseurs away,” like Bob Dylan in “No Direction Home” — tells Mitchie he is looking for a “new sound,” a change from the “stupid cookie-cutter pop-star stuff” he is forced to play by his label. (Although everyone at Camp Rock seems to like it well enough.) To be sure, “cookie-cutter pop-star stuff” is exactly what is on sale here, and that includes Shane’s new sound (cookie-cutter pop-star stuff on an acoustic guitar), an irony surely to be lost on the target audience, whether or not it was lost on the producers. I leave off the “stupid,” because although this music may be manufactured, it isn’t dumb. It is made by people who know just which melodic skip will put a lump in your throat and what chord change will drive you to your feet. It works on me, and I know better.

…

Four screenwriters labored to craft this piece, including Julie Brown (of “Earth Girls Are Easy,” “Just Say Julie” and elsewhere), who appears as a camp counselor. “Camp Rock” isn’t particularly good, but it’s good at what it does. The product may be “inauthentic,” if such a thing is even possible, but the way it will connect with a lot of little girls and more than a few little boys is real enough. Authenticity is in the heart of the beholder.

[Via: New York Magazine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, NYTimes, USA Today, NY Daily News, Huffington Post, CNN, LA Times]