Even at its most automatic, the teen-pop La Machine can crank out great singles like the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" or LFO's "Summer Girls." But as sure as Michael J. Fox played Alex P. Keaton, none of these groups has the style, imagination or musicality of Hanson. Like a blond three-headed
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hydra, Hanson loom over the competition, making all other teen idols sound like Gerber-sucking clowns. And they've already made more good albums than the Bay City Rollers, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, Tony DeFranco and the DeFranco Family, and Kristy and Jimmy McNichol
combined!Fortunately, Hanson took their time making a follow-up to the debut Middle of Nowhere, and they didn't spend their vacation buying matching white suits, dance lessons or wind machines. Instead, they matured into a bang-up rock & roll band, singing and playing the high-energy gems on This Time Around with a surprisingly adult confidence. Teen-pop acts usually fall on their faces when they try to get taken seriously; count yourself lucky if you can't remember the Jackson 5's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or the Osmonds' "He Ain't Heavy . . . He's My Brother." But Hanson's style of maturity is old-fashioned classic rock, which they attack with the zest of kids taking their first cruise down the strip in the old man's vintage Mustang. Without the Dust Brothers helping at the controls, This Time Around has more rock and less funk than Middle of Nowhere, showing off Hanson's deepened harmonies, their expanding instrumental prowess and Taylor's increasingly sexy, bluesy growl. Hey, when it's time to change, it's time to change.
Nothing on This Time Around has the super-sugar-crisp rush of "MMMBop," but singles like that roll around only once in any band's career; the Jackson 5 never topped "I Want You Back," either. The sound still includes scratching and dance beats, but there's more emphasis on raging guitar hooks, making Hanson sound like the Black Crowes with a tighter sense of structure and a friskier set of hormones. The big ballad "This Time Around" has a Stax-style uplift, and the closing piano meditation, "A Song to Sing," has a genuinely grown-up air of melancholy. But the real chalupa-droppers here are the fast ones, especially "You Never Know," "If Only" and the amazing "Runaway Run," where Taylor hits soulful high notes that could make a grown woman blush. If I'm not mistaken, these kids have been spending quality time with Exile on Main Street, maybe even Sticky Fingers, and you can hear a new Stones-y pun
