BON JOVI: BOUNCE (2002)
1) Undivided; 2) Everyday; 3)
The Distance; 4) Joey; 5) Misunderstood; 6) All About Lovin' You; 7) Hook Me
Up; 8) Right Side Of Wrong; 9) Love Me Back To Life; 10) You Had Me From Hello;
11) Bounce; 12) Open All Night.
After the «crush», comes the «bounce»... if we
were talking predators, I guess the two should have been turned around, but
first, Bon Jovi are no predators, and second, Bounce is supposed to deal with the issue of «bouncing back» from
9/11. Since the music business logically supposed that the American people were
now in more need of spiritual guidance from established artists than ever
before, there was no way Bon Jovi could not
write their country an album about it — after all, Bruce Springsteen did, and
even Neil Young did, even being from a different country and all, and I suppose
Billy Joel would have done one, too, had he still been interested in writing
pop songs rather than recasting himself as a 21st century reincarnation of
Chopin.
In all honesty, 9/11 was a pretty clumsy
pretext for writing topical anthems — perhaps because so many people rushed to
use it for inspiration, and, as it often happens in such cases, most, if not
all, of the results felt flat, or, at least, have not outlived their momentum
(anybody still remember Paul McCartney's ʽFreedomʼ? Even ʽGive Ireland Back To
The Irishʼ had more lasting value...). The Bon Jovi album is hardly an
exception, but on the whole, Bounce has
more or less the same feel as Crush
— not knowing its context and not listening to the lyrics, you'd hardly get the
impression that something particularly awful and life-changing had inspired
its appearance. ʽUndividedʼ opens the record with a song of dread, hope and
unity, but essentially it is just a common-sounding alt-rocker whose best part
is Sambora's short and elegantly constructed guitar solo; the harmonies on the
"one for love, one for truth" chorus come together in a muddy howl,
singing along to which is not much fun, although, of course, if any of the
band's fans want to pretend that doing so really makes them feel
"united" and "undivided", it's their Jove-given right.
Much more efficient is the lead single that
preceded the album itself — ʽEverydayʼ consists of all the same ingredients
(plus a little bit of the talkbox to immediately let you know who's been sleeping
here), but it's got a credible paranoid pulse to it, with a solidly doubled
bass-guitar riff and a respectable verse-bridge-chorus buildup, one of the
boys' most successful pop-rock concoctions from the last millennium (and
another good guitar solo, too). And it's not the only such song here: ʽHook Me
Upʼ and the title track are also energetic, catchy, and not particularly
suffering from overproduction. Jon's good-boyishness certainly shines through
in how he does not dare go all the way with the "me, I just don't give a
f-f-f-f-f..." of the bridge, but when you are dominated by the rules of
the game of much of your established audience (at least, the hypocritical part
of it), I guess there ain't much to do but to follow the rules.
In between these few rockers comes a lot of
softer stuff that mostly just flies out of the window right away. As Jon grows
older, he gradually turns away from imitating Springsteen to imitating Billy
Joel — ʽJoeyʼ and especially ʽRight
Side Of Wrongʼ sound almost note-for-note tributes to Piano Man: grand epics where pianos and strings matter more than
guitars, and pathos matters more than pianos and strings. I do, however, have
to admit that the orchestral arrangements on these and other songs immediately
struck me as the best thing about them, so it was no surprise to learn that
they were at least partially handled by David Campbell (the father of Beck and,
not coincidentally, probably the best orchestral arranger in pop of the past
thirty years). The strings at least make life less miserable when you are
forced to give in to the «spiritual majesty» of these tunes. Nothing, however,
redeems the band's excourses into neo-country such as ʽYou Had Me From Helloʼ
and ʽMisunderstoodʼ which could just as well be performed by Taylor Swift or
somebody else in a sexy red dress.
Bottomline: once again, not «awful» — the
pluses and minuses outbalance each other fairly well to come together in a
«neutral» assessment — but still not enough to raise Jon and Richie to the
level of «artist who actually has something worth hearing to say». I mean,
okay, it begins with a few songs about 9/11, but it still ends with a song
about Jon Bon Jovi's role in Ally McBeal
and how it should have turned out. Far be it from me to pass judgement upon
whether it is ʽUndividedʼ or ʽOpen All Nightʼ that encapsulates a greater part
of the man's spirit. But it could be argued that the album's construction is
still symbolical — no matter how horrendous the scope of your latest
catastrophe may ne, when it all ends you are still going back to your soap operas, want it or not. Maybe that's
what the proverbial «bounce» is all about.
Oho, Everyday is a very good song indeed. And JBJ has learned to express more than just ecstatic cheese - he sounds mean!
ReplyDeleteUndivided, Everyday, The Distance, Bounce—for me, this is their most enjoyable record.
ReplyDelete