{"id":41826,"date":"2009-12-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-circle\/"},"modified":"2009-12-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T00:00:00","slug":"the-circle","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bon Jovi have tackled some pretty major issues on their socially-conscious albums of late. Bounce<\/i> dealt with 9\/11 and its aftermath, and Have A Nice Day <\/i>harbored some very despondent messages for President Bush and his administration. This time around, they have taken the state of their local and global economies to serve as the narrative for The Circle<\/i>, their eleventh studio album. While I do admire artists who write about the world around them and engage in social commentary with their audiences, it doesn\u2019t always make for great music, and this is the problem I have with this particular record.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Truth be told, Bon Jovi hasn\u2019t released a truly good album since 2000\u2019s Crush<\/i>, and while The Circle <\/i>is a very disappointing release, it does happen to be their most inspired work since that record. If that sounds a tad confusing, then I apologize, but allow me to explain. Musically speaking, this is a reenergized band trying some new tricks, all the while delivering an album in their signature sound. Lyrically, however, it is your typical run-of-the-mill Bon Jovi disc, one that\u2019s been made almost a dozen times over.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Jon\u2019s voice is still perky and slightly raspy, but on a lot of these tracks he just sounds dead boring. This is, of course, in direct contrast with the smiling, sexy, and energetic frontman that he is onstage. Just why he can\u2019t take that guy into the studio I\u2019ll never know. Polished into a glossy fuzz by John Shanks, JBJ, and Richie Sambora, The Circle<\/i> just comes off a little too careful and clean for me to really get excited about anything I hear here.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Opener \u201cWe Weren\u2019t Born To Follow\u201d is just a lame attempt at rewriting \u201cIt\u2019s My Life,\u201d right down to the first few lines. \u201cWork For The Working Man\u201d could easily be mistaken for a stripped-down version of \u201cLivin\u2019 On A Prayer,\u201d which I probably would have preferred, to be honest. \u201cLive Before You Die\u201d is the kind of song that JBJ could write in his sleep \u2013 in fact, it sounds like he did just that going by his dreary delivery.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Songs like \u201cBrokenpromiseland\u201d and \u201cThorn In My Side\u201d really offer nothing new musically, but they are lyrically at least among the stronger tracks to be found here.\u00a0 The Circle <\/i>isn\u2019t all that bad, though, and surprisingly it\u2019s one of the ballads that is the best song by far. \u201cWhen We Were Beautiful\u201d is a great song that is right up there in my book among their finest (power) ballads. \u201cSuperman Tonight\u201d is a wonderful rocker that hits all the right spots and finds JBJ at his most inspired. That is followed with the heaviest track on the album, the short and to-the-point \u201cBullet.\u201d\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Oddly, the last four tracks on the record are all strong enough to almost save the day for the band. \u201cLove\u2019s The Only Rule\u201d is vintage Bon Jovi, as is the understated \u201cFast Cars.\u201d Coupled with the awesome groove of \u201cHappy Now\u201d and the beautiful ballad \u201cLearn To Love,\u201d it almost makes up for the lackluster first half of the album. But not quite \u2013 it\u2019s just a case of too little, too late. Six strong songs and six duds are never going to cut it, especially for this band. So despite the excellent sales figure (for today\u2019s market), I\u2019m still waiting for the next great Bon Jovi album \u2013 hell, I\u2019ll even settle for a good one.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8140],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-41826","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bon-jovi","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41826"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41826"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}