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The New Jersey group gets back to the business of rocking on its 11th studio album, The Circle.
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But even while Mr. Bon Jovi is sympathizing with the common man, the scrape in his voice is never wrenching. And while the arrangements are mildly darker than on the group’s previous albums, this group is still drawn magnetically to swelling choruses, its ambition of scale still grander than its ambition of import.
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Predictable and immaculately produced, these arena-shakers offer a familiar brand of Jersey cheese, but where Jon Bon Jovi once was kind of quixotic ('Livin' on a Prayer'), he's more contemplative than ever, turning out meditations like 'Live Before You Die' ("There'll come a day when you have to say hello to goodbye").
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It does rock--if your idea of rock is Aerosmith doing Diane Warren songs.
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Q MagazineMore than a quarter century down the line, Bon Jovi are still living and selling the rock 'n' roll fantasy on The Circle. Why Not? They've done very nicely out of it. [Jan 2010, p. 126]
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Between cliches and Jon's strained voice, The Circle just feels tired.
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A knack for oversized choruses remains hardwired in Bon Jovi, but in this gloomy context, they act as reminders that they once sounded like they were a working band for working men instead of rich men fretting about a world they've long left behind.
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Slick production and beer-ad bombast grease these 12 tracks. Singer Jon Bon Jovi has yet to meet a cliche he can’t work into a song.
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Predictable return to stadium soft-rock from former Poodle-permers.
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The Circle shows off Bon Jovi's still-sharp knack for wedding blandly optimistic sentiments to predictably soaring choruses. Unfortunately, it's getting pretty hard to tell one song from the next.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 46 out of 60
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Mixed: 6 out of 60
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Negative: 8 out of 60
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LuisG.Nov 11, 2009I used to like Bon Jovi, a lot but what they do nowadays is...so sadly BAD it is not rock, in any way.
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May 11, 2016
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Apr 8, 2016