Blueshadow’s Bon Jovi Blog

Jon’s vocals on this song are outstanding. In terms of vocal performance, this is the outstanding song for Jon on this song. It doesn’t really build to an enormous climax, but it does build up nicely. Instead, this song maintains a nice, even pace, instead of a big punch. In a lot of ways it functions well as a nice closer that brings the album down to a nice calm close.

This isn’t a big, rip-roaring ballad, but I enjoyed it even though it’s a bit of a departure from what people expect from Bon Jovi. The great thing about this song is that it sounds more like something from These Days, which is one of my favorite Bon Jovi albums. It has the slower pace, but between the vocals that are so distinctly Jon, the memorable chorus, and the rock-solid guitars, this sounds like a Bon Jovi song.

In some ways it kind of reminds me of the role that the song ‘Diamond Ring’ played on These Days, even though ‘Learn to Love’ has a bit more bite to it than ‘Diamond Ring’. Both of them bring their respective albums to a nice, contemplative close. Even though it isn’t a big, classic ballad, I still really like this song.

Sorry this is so late. I got dragged into making pie for a fundraiser yesterday. We made a lot of pie, and then I fell asleep on the couch after dinner.

The intro to this song reminds me a bit of ‘Lay Your Hands On Me’, in a good way. Musically, this is one of the better songs on this album. While it never really builds up to as big as it might have, it’s still solid. There’s nothing in it to knock me out of the groove, which is a big improvement over some of the other tracks.

Richie delivers another good solo on this one, even if it is a tad short. I think this song could have done with another 30 seconds or more of guitar solo. But what he does deliver, he does well. It’s a nice melodic embellishment above the melody without descending into any kind of excess.

It isn’t Jon’s finest vocal outing on The Circle either, but it’s decent, and the occasional segment of raspier vocals doesn’t detract too much from the emotion in this song. While it doesn’t have the emotional punch that it could have, Jon puts a good bit more passion into this one than some of the other songs before it.

All told, this isn’t the best song on the album, but there’s nothing particularly bad about it. Basically, it’s a solid Bon Jovi song that sounds like a Bon Jovi song. I think it’s a decent effort, even if it ends up feeling a bit like filler. I just can’t shake the feeling that this might have been a hit with a little more refinement. The subject matter of the lyrics is classic Bon Jovi, and the lyrics on this one are actually pretty decent. If it just had a tad bit more passion, it might have been so much more.

This song is perhaps the worst disappointment on the album. I was hoping for an ode to some of the great cars that Jon and Richie have owned over the years and instead I got a bad analogy dragged out for three minutes. Suffice to say, the lyrics on this one really don’t cut it. There has to be another song that they wrote that would be better than this stinker.

Jon doesn’t do all that well vocally here either. He’s right back to being nasal again, at least in the beginning. His voice does seem to improve as the song goes on, but the beginning is especially bad, and there is less backing in the beginning to cover it up. The beginning suffers from a generally generic feel. There’s nothing about it that speaks of anything other than the generic pop-rock that is all that seems to be out there right now. Plus, the song is never really allowed to build up any kind of momentum. As soon as I think it’s starting to build up to a good bit, it goes right back down again.

The guitar part of this song is unfortunate as well. None of Richie’s outstanding talents are put to use here at all. All he does is play a very limited supporting role, and there’s nothing there to really take the spotlight. He doesn’t even get to perform any kind of a solo in this song. I’m just left with the feeling that the guitarist could have been anybody. There’s nothing about it that makes use of Richie’s talents at all. It’s too bad, because Richie might have been able to salvage this, much as he saved ‘Thorn in My Side’.

Unfortunately, this song has earned a rare distinction among Bon Jovi songs–the Immediate Skip. I really don’t like it and don’t want to listen to it. Up till now, the only other songs by the band to have earned this honor are ‘Mystery Train’ and ‘She’s a Mystery’ from Crush.

Ah, another track that doesn’t really sound like Bon Jovi. This song had the promise of being one of the rock ballads that Bon Jovi has always delivered so well, but doesn’t quite make it. Every time it makes it to the end of a verse, it builds up gorgeously, but then it doesn’t deliver enough punch in the chorus. This song is begging for a big, fist-pumping chorus, and it just doesn’t deliver well. The chorus just isn’t really memorable enough to really stick. That’s really my only beef with the writing on this track, because the rest of the lyrics are the stuff that great Bon Jovi ballads are made of.

Also, I really don’t like the strange, sort of ghostly female backing vocals in the solo. They just sound totally out of place in a Bon Jovi song. The band is made up entirely of men, so the female vocals just don’t sound like they belong at all, especially, because the backing vocals elsewhere in the song are done by the other members of the band. Richie’s work in the solo fits in well with feel of the backing vocals and the keyboards though. It takes a real musician to take an instrument as strong as the electric guitar and make it sound that plaintive.

Jon’s did a pretty good job on the lead vocals on this one, but I just get the feeling that he could have put more into it. While the vocals are technically good–Jon sounds marvelous–it seems to be a bit lacking in passion somehow. The vocals just don’t seem as expressive as they could be, and the end result is that they don’t really resonate with my emotions.

Unfortunately, so far, I can’t warm up to this song at all. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing great about it.

Sorry about how late this is running. The battery in my Zune died today at work, and I had left the charger cable at home, so I didn’t get to write up my review during lunch.

The intro to this song kind of threw me off. I really don’t enjoy a lot of the really generic singer/songwriter types out there right now and the intro to this song just reminded me more of that kind of song. Fortunately, it turns around quick and turns back into a proper Bon Jovi song. (I still don’t really care for the intro, or the interludes backed primarily with strings and keyboards. I believe this is one song on the album that has suffered badly from overproduction. There’s extra stuff mixed in, like the strings, that just plain not needed.)

In this particular song, I find that it’s the bass that defines the song. The guitar is there, but Richie provides a a gorgeous series of embellishments over the bass, playing a graceful supporting role behind Hugh rather than standing in the front. Even in the solo, Richie doesn’t truly take the lead over the bass. The guitar in the solo is gorgeous, but the bass is still leading. I like it. With that kind of power, it’s the first song on The Circle that really inspires me to bounce along with the music.

Overall, I’m still kind of ambivalent on this one. I have a feeling that it will end up being much like Captain Crash, a song that isn’t particularly special on the album track, but somehow undergoes a complete metamorphosis when performed live. (In this case, the deletion of the strings will do a lot.) I’ll have to wait for the tour to find out, but it should be interesting to revisit the subject later after I’ve heard it live.

I was unimpressed with this song the first several times that I listened to this album. It seemed to be a bit of a low spot. I suppose the upbeat message of the lyrics is nice, but it’s not a new sentiment, and I’ve heard it mined far more successfully by other artists.

Dave does get to come out to play on this track, which is nice, but the song doesn’t really leverage his skills. Dave’s just as capable of tearing it up on the keyboard as Richie is in the guitar, but he really doesn’t get to do that here. Richie doesn’t get much to do here either; the guitar fills in a supporting role but doesn’t add anything truly special or dramatic to the song.

Even at this point, I still find this song to be more than a little generic, and that’s really its worst failing. There is little in the style of this song that speaks of Bon Jovi. It sounds interchangeable with any of ten other bands out there. The strings in the background of this song just serve to dilute the Bon Jovi sound and make it sound like it escaped from a John Mayer album. Jon has all of the power that the rest of his bandmates can bring to the table, and this song doesn’t make good use of it at all.

The best thing about this song is that Jon does sing it well. He doesn’t strain, overreach or get nasal here at all. Vocally, at least, this is a well done song.