Lovin’ Spoonful makes us believe in time travel.

Sixties airwaves stalwarts Lovin’ Spoonful are still out there, touring their hearts out, despite lacking two key members, founding bandmates John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky. Reports from the tour are still favorable though, if you can let go of the fact that Sebastian, principal songwriter for the group that brought us such sunny hits as “Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind” and “You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice” is absent.

Music lovers of a certain age (and we know who we are) aren’t likely to forget the classic “Summer in the City”, and hearing the group perform it again onstage, with sweet vocal harmonies and arrangements from an age when the group challenged the Beatles for airplay, is close akin to a trip back in time to a simpler day.

The group, which performed at Woodstock and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, are troopers, still game without turning gamey, sweet but not saccharine.

Kudos to a truly classic band that still makes us believe in magic.

Jonas Brothers, Britney in sunset as Colbie’s star rises.

Time to mark the Jonas Brothers expired?

Thanks to some lackluster reviews and uninspiring performances from their latest tour, some critics are already marking the hugely-popular Jonas Brothers down as out.

As any boy-band member could tell you, products like that expire in what seems like weeks. That may be the case now for the erstwhile-sturdy gleesome threesome, who have been spotted lately looking a bit glum, going through the motions, and perhaps hearing the bell toll for them, instead of recess.

Never a darling of the critics, perhaps with good reason, the Jonas Brothers are having a hard time cashing in on the one thing that will often give those skeptical critics a reason to offer grudging respect – rabid popularity. First-week sales of their latest album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times, were only about half that of their previous effort, A Little Bit Longer. Their movie musical Camp Rock was an underwhelming success by most standards, failing to hitch a ride on the dwindling coattails of High School Musical.

But their core fans are still showing up for their concerts, at least until the fans outgrow them, and the trio snagged a gig at the Teen Choice Awards, where they emceed the event, taking over the duties from Nick Jonas’ sometime-beau Miley Cyrus, who if not hosting at least performed her hit “Party in the USA.”

Find music by Jonas Brothers and more here.

Whom gods destroy they first make mad

What is it about American culture that demands we lift up our stars to the heavens, only to smash them back down again when they inevitably display human foibles? There’s a sociology thesis in there somewhere, but for now, one of pop culture’s favorite sports seems to be monitoring the music maven or movie magnate’s most-recent meltdown.

It seems that’s never truer than when talking about golden-tressed tabloid target Britney Spears, who’s seen criticism from almost every quarter at some time. But as usual, critical acclaim could come her way again soon: she has just been announced as a contender for the Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Britney will vie for the award versus Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”, Eminem’s “We Made You”, Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown”, and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”. Spears is trying to follow up on her win last year for “Piece of Me”, which also took top honors.

Find music by Britney Spears here.

Brooks & Dunn take heat for newest video.

It’s official – if you’re a country fan, you can’t avoid Brooks & Dunn.

The country duo has amassed a huge following, scores of awards, and not incidentally a long string of top-selling albums and singles, due largely to their modern country appeal and down-home image.

First breaking onto the scene in 1991, their debut album Brand New Man sold no fewer than six million copies, and boasted four number-one singles, including “”Brand New Man”, “My Next Broken Heart”, “Neon Moon” and the now-classic “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”.

Accessibility is the name of the game when you’re tapping into the dynamic that Brooks and Dunn still ply, and nearly every show on their current tour, famous for high spirits and infectious energy, features a meet-and-greet and/or VIP tickets and seats for superfans. The venues themselves are as unpretentious as the duo’s music: state and county fairs, ball fields, and military bases populate the list for the most part.

All of which is typical for B&D, who know their audience as well as they know themselves. And thanks to relentless touring and an uncanny knack for gauging what their fans want, you’ll rarely be able to miss them, even if your name is George W. Bush or Barack Obama, both of whom have used the group’s tunes on the campaign trail.

Nashville quartet polarizing critics as they stretch their legs.

While the Kings of Leon have been known to ponder their roots living in their itinerant father’s car as he plied the highways and hedges of the rural southeast US, steeped in a southern-fried stomp and bursting with teen rebellion, their latest effort, Only By the Night, is more forward-looking, perhaps at the expense of losing the fans and critical acclaim that brought them this far.

When they first burst onto the scene in 2003, the Nashville foursome were mostly noted outside America, drawing critical raves from the British press that helped lead to opening slots for The Strokes and U2. Fanning the flames were inclusions of some tracks from the release in movies and video games.

As the ball began rolling for the band, the February 2005 release in the US of Aha Shake Heartbreak exceeded all expectations, and garnered the group a series of kudos from such high-profile performers as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, the members of U2, and Bob Dylan, all of whom the Kings toured with in 2005-06, along with Elvis Costello and, oddly, Elton John, who reportedly remarked during a concert at the O2 Arena in London that they were “…an outstanding band of our time…”