BON JOVI: THIS LEFT FEELS RIGHT (2003)
1) Livin' On A Prayer; 2) Bad
Medicine; 3) It's My Life; 4) Lay Your Hands On Me; 5) You Give Love A Bad
Name; 6) Bed Of Roses; 7) Everyday; 8) Born To Be My Baby; 9) Keep The Faith;
10) I'll Be There For You; 11) Always; 12) The Distance.
Oh my sweet Jesus. I get shivers all over
trying to reconstruct, step by step, the abominable logic behind this album. Because
the optimal reconstruction goes something like this:
«I (we) feel tremendously dissatisfied with myself
(ourselves), the way the world thinks about me (us) and my (our) music. Yes, the
superstardom, yes, the money, yes, the admiring fans, yes, the ability to make
it onto the front cover of Rolling Stone
without sarcasm. But does the world really get
Bon Jovi? Does the world really feel
the depth, really suck in all the potential concealed in those Bon Jovi songs?
Can't it simply be that the world loves a steady rock'n'roll beat and loud
distorted electric guitars? Could it be that the world dances like crazy to
ʽLivin' On A Prayerʼ just because it is being seduced by the talkbox effects?
What about the message? The bitter
inner truth? The emotional angst? The religious connotations? That ain't a
world livin' on a prayer — it's a world livin' on a talkbox and a chuggy
bassline. No, really, it's high time that something should be done about this!
So maybe we have cut our long hair and began dressing in T-shirts and working
class jackets — that ain't enough. Too superficial. Something from the heart!»
This
Left Feels Right is a wicked
affair — a complete deconstruction and reconstruction of most of the band's
major hits in what could only be called «Heart-On-Sleeve Remixes». Not really
«unplugged» as such (although many of the guitar parts are, indeed, acoustic),
the album stakes it all on the «melodicity», «emotionality», and «spirituality»
of these songs, as they are rearranged with soft, sometimes electronic, drumming,
folk/country guitar overdubs, mellow keyboards, and almost angelic vocal
harmonies (ʽLivin' On A Prayerʼ is reconceived as a Tommy/Gina duet with Mike
d'Abo's daughter Olivia — curious that Jon was not able to find anybody of
higher stature, but perhaps the addition of a superstar was thought of as
incompatible with the «humble» ideology of the project).
One has to admit that a lot of work went into
the project: most of the time, the rearrangements are truly drastic, making the
songs completely unrecognizable, especially the old-time rock hits like ʽBad
Medicineʼ and ʽYou Give Love A Bad Nameʼ, both of which are redone as
«country-blues-pop» numbers with slide guitars that either weep like George Harrison
or go all swampy on us. The ballads, just by being ballads, stay closer to what
they used to be, but with most of the electricity going out of them, emphasis
is also fully transferred onto the vocal harmonies.
The results are predictable: This Left Feels Right sets out to seduce you and leave you in a pool of
sentimental tears, as the personal charisma of Jon Bon Jovi and the band's
«heavenly» hooks climb into your brain and take control. If it works, it works;
but with the overall triviality of the band's melodies and lyrics, if any of
these songs made sense in the first place, it was only when they went over the
top. Simply put, there is no other
setting than its original drunken-swaggery hair-metal arrogance in which a song
like ʽBad Medicineʼ would be acceptable. Whether you do it in this
stripped-acoustic-bluesy manner, or whether you hire a full Wagnerian orchestra
to perform it, or whether you do an instrumental didgeridoo-only version, this left won't ever feel right to
anybody who knows right from left.
Ultimately, This Left feels as if all the banality inherently present in Bon
Jovi's work has been carefully distilled, filtered out, pressed, folded, and
re-packaged for universal consumption. The basic hooks still remain
(sometimes), but they have been stripped of their rocking power and relative
fun quotient, and forcefully converted into «spiritual anthems». In other words
— I could hardly think of a more stupid career move, that is, of course, if Bon
Jovi's career ever had «musically intelligent people» as part of its target
audience. Much to people's honor, This
Left Feels Right sold quite poorly, compared to the band's regular albums —
still, the total number of sold copies is said to approximate something like a
million and a half, and if this reflects the number of music buyers who are
willing to take Jon Bon Jovi as their soul brother and spiritual guru, well, it
may not be such a large figure, but still, walk carefully out there, and don't
let just about anybody know that
you, too, would award the record a thumbs down.
>(ʽLivin' On A Prayerʼ is reconceived as a Tommy/Gina duet with Mike d'Abo's daughter Olivia — curious that Jon was not able to find anybody of higher stature, but perhaps the addition of a superstar was thought of as incompatible with the «humble» ideology of the project)
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia: "For the Russian and CIS release Olivia d'Abo's part in Livin' on a Prayer was recorded by Russian superstar Alsou in Bon Jovi's studio. This version was played on Russian radio stations to promote the release and got great reviews by Bon Jovi fans, but Olivia's version appeared on the Russian CD due to Universal Music Russia's decision."