Bon Jovi go Country? Sorry?
Artiste: Bon Jovi
Nationality: American
Album: Lost highway
Year: 2007
Label: Mercury Nashville
Genre: Rock/AOR (with jest a sprinklin' of Country...)
Tracks:
Lost highway
Summertime
(You want to) Make a memory
Whole lot of leaving
We got it going on
Any other day
Seat next to you
Everybody's broken
Till we ain't strangers anymore
The last night
One step closer
I love this town
Chronological position: Tenth album
Familiarity: Everything; I have all their albums
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Country? I don't hear it...
Best track(s):Lost highway, I love this town, Seat next to you, (You want to) Make a memory, Whole lot of leaving, Everybody's broken, (Why are you surprised I'm listing most of the album? I'm a Bon Jovi fanatic: if you know me, you know that!)
The last night, One step closer
Worst track(s): We got it goin' on
Comments: Surprisingly, given my devotion to this band, there is one album of theirs that I have never listened to all the way through, and it's this one. Partly that's because of the country influence on the album, which many Bon Jovi fans have jeered, and partly it's just because I only got it relatively recently, to complete my collection. I've heard a few tracks off it, in rotation on a playlist, but never played the whole thing through.
I don't see a huge country influence on it as it opens with a big hard happy rocker in the title track and it continues in
Summertime, big punchy drums from Tico Torres, a sort of half-rap style but not so much that you'd call it such, kind of more the sort of thing The Script tried on their third album recently. Great ballads as ever, as in the orchestrally-driven
(You want to) Make a memory, as well as the usual good-time songs such as closer
I love this town which just brims with energy and enthusiasm, and
Any other day, which rocks along nicely in the usual Bon Jovi territory.
This album is however unique in the Bon Jovi canon in having not one but two duets on it, the first of which comes in
We got it goin' on, where they enlist the services of Big and Rich, featuring country superstars Big Kenny and John Rich, and here you can really start to hear the country sound coming in, not surprisingly. Can't say I love it though; probably the first track on the album I haven't loved. So far. I kind of hear the ghost of country again in
Seat next to you, but come on! The guys aren't breaking out fiddles and steel guitars and singing about farms and ranches and horses. I don't see a massive difference between this and their usual output (stow the usual "yeah it's all the same ****" jokes please) --- not sure who that is on the female vocals, but as Hillary Lindsey co-wrote the song maybe it's her?
I hear more country in
Till we ain't strangers anymore but then again that's not surprising, as Jon's dueting with LeAnn Rimes here, so she's bound to bring something of herself to the song. By and large though, it's still a recognisable and basic Bon Jovi ballad. As indeed the entire album is totally recognisable and categorisable as a Bon Jovi album. Country? Pfft! They're a long way from going down that route.
Overall impression: Country? I don't see it...
Intention: Waiting for their new album. Roll on ... ooh! Ooh! It's out now! Excuse me...
