Happiness Begins

“We went into every session hoping to bottle up happiness and bring it to the world,” Joe Jonas tells Apple Music of the first album he's made with his brothers Nick and Kevin in a decade. “We didn't know that would actually become the title of the album, or that the cover would be the visual representation of how we feel, which is that with each other, we can get through anything.” The album—tremendously pure and upbeat, with co-writing from Ryan Tedder, Max Martin and Greg Kurstin—has playful Police spin-offs, Post Malone-inspired bops and smouldering slow-jam serenades that, honestly, might make fans faint. Here's a track-by-track rundown of the family reunion as told by the brothers themselves. “Sucker” Kevin: “We wrote this about Ricky Bobby and his journey to be the best race car driver in the world.” Nick: “If you're not first, you're last.” Joe: “But it was a slow burn. It wasn't immediate for all of us that we said, ‘This has to be the first single!’ We felt like it'd be a good album song, but we didn't think it’d be one to introduce us back into the world.” Kevin: “And then what happened?” Joe: “And then it became the first single.” “Cool” Nick: “This song came towards the end of the writing process. We were trying to write a ballad, actually, but we ended up writing this instead because we all came to the studio feeling very cool that day. Feeling like a million bucks.” “Only Human” Joe: “This was the last song to make the album. Max Martin and Shellback [Karl Johan Schuster] approached us. They're handsome Scandinavian dudes, but they also happen to be two of the best songwriters and producers in the world. They have a lot of hits on their hands. And a little story: A lot of this song was written and recorded via FaceTime. Shellback was home in Sweden and he had to be really quiet because it was 4am his time and people were sleeping in the other room.” Nick: “Actually, it would have been a really good Apple commercial. How the world is getting smalle