<p>"Spaceman," Nick Jonas (Island Records)</p>
<p>Make room, Paul McCartney, Snow Patrol and Taylor Swift. Add Nick Jonas to the growing list of artists who have made fabulous albums during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Jonas’ 11-track electronic-rich “Spaceman” is an airy and slightly unmoored love letter from a lusty man who is drinking alone, a little crazed and maybe paranoid. “Too drunk and I’m all in my feelings,” he sings in the excellent “2Drunk.” “Should I send that text? Maybe not/But I miss the sex.” </p>
<p>In other words, we are all Nick Jonas.</p>
<p>The pandemic seems to have scrambled the newlywed, who should have been enjoying his honeymoon period with actor Priyanka Chopra. The unrushed Troye Sivan-like “Don’t Give Up On Us,” the opening track, is alarming coming so soon in a love affair. </p>
<p>Not to worry: “Delicious” is so steamy it should come with a explicit warning. (“I’m licking the dishes,” he purrs). “This Is Heaven” is a more PG love song, sounding like something Lionel Richie would record, complete with an old school horn solo.</p>
<p>Things get naughty again on the aptly named “Sexual” — “Tongue tied/Follow your neck down to your thighs.” His lover “puts the sex in sexual.” In a nice nod to his Indian-born love, he’s included an electric sitar. His falsetto soars and the bed is “soaked.” </p>
<p>“Deeper Love” — which samples from “I Want to Know What Love Is” by Foreigner — might actually remind listeners of an updated version of Steve Winwood “Higher Love.” More traditional Jonas-sounding songs are also on the album, like “If I Fall” and “Nervous.”</p>
<p>Jonas co-wrote every track with producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin and the songwriter and singer Mozella. He was separated from Chopra last summer when she filmed in Germany and explored that loss and discomfort.</p>
<p>Jonas has never been more relatable. He, too, likely was watching “The Last Dance” along with all of us, slipping in a reference on the album to "MJ in the playoffs." His TV is always on. “All my friends are home/So am I,” he sings.</p>
<p>It all comes together on the title track, which is chilly and brilliant as it captures us all in lockdown, like terrestrial astronauts. “Mask off minute I get home/All safe now that I’m alone.” Few songs in the past year have better captured the unease and alienation of this past year.</p>
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<p>Mark Kennedy is at <a href="http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits">http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits</a></p>
