Because We Can - First Single Confirmed

If you saw the trailer for The Apprentice last year which was played to death, the song in the background was by Fun. It's a pop song basically.

OK, I'll say it. Still could use more guitar, but I'm loving the lyrics, drums and Jon's voice on the tune. Took me a few listens.

The lyrics? I kinda expected something kinda bigger in thought.. I love the title, I think it would work better as an album title than What About Now. I was surprised that it is a love song actually. Or it should look like a love song and it has some notions of deeper meaning. It's written in the theme of LOAP and BTBMB but not in their league. I translate BJ songs to my language and this one wasn't that much entertaining. The "because we can" line seems not natural as the last line of the chorus, it's in a different person etc.

Can you give me your lyrics explanation? I love talking about songs and what they mean because I love looking for and finding best expressions and way to translate it to my language.

I don't know - I guess it's a Jovi thing. The whole staring out the window, being sick of living in black and white, wishing for "technicolor". It's cheesy, but in that classic Bon Jovi fashion. A weird thing (for me anyways), is I love Jon's voice at certain points in the song when it's backing vocals.

Yeah that's right. Lets have Bon Jovi sounding all 80s & 90s again. Lets turn them into a nostalgia band.

Because this would be the beginning of a worse demise for the band than releasing something a bit current sounding that's a bit fun and catchy. And what the hell are you talking about referencing a die hard in the same light, as glorifying 7800 Degrees. The album is by FAR the worst the band has ever released. That's why they don't play anything off that album and Jon has admitted this on numerous occasions.

I just think you are a total arrogant asshole for this post and you've made yourself look like one of those idiotic trolls on here & I had more respect for you than that. Everyone is a Bon Jovi fan for their own reason, everyone gets something different out of the back catalogue for their own personal reason.

You don't like the song - I get it. But don't chastise the people that do - and accuse them of (in so many words) not being true/real Bon Jovi fans.

I do love how you call him out on asking for Bon Jovi to sound like Bon Jovi... no one really wants them to re-make Slippery (okay, maybe some do) but let's stop pretending they are not chasing fads... they are. They're just not chasing the one's they helped create anymore.

This next comment is a general one...

I have seen a lot of people calling this 'classic Jovi' - is it really? This is as much an example of 'recent Jovi' as I have ever heard.

The usual 'pick yourself up, look in the mirror, we can do it!' lyric, over weak, plinky guitar work and shiny, bright, frankly shocking production values. Before anyone says Prayer had a similar lyrical theme, please... totally different league of writing. A Motown bassline, rolling out a talkbox for the first time since the 70s and a whopping double-chorus... these songs are poles apart.

One of them IS classic Jovi... it's not the one with the lyric about being a fart in a lift, or whatever it is.

But then I freely admit, this is just my opinion and my taste. If you love it, power to ya...

I don't know about you guys, but everytime I listen to this one I like it more.

nickolai. First of all, let me get all the non-important stuff out of the way.

1. Yes, I am an arrogant asshole!
2. No, I don't care even the slightest if you lost all respect for me (whatever that may mean)
3. I am well beyond the 'groupie' age of 16.5 when I may have thought that accusing someone of not being a 'real' or 'true' fan meant anything at all
4. 7800 Degrees Fahrenheit might not be the best of Bon Jovi records, yet the guitar work on it is the most complex and ambitious Richie has recorded, song in song out. The reason I enumerated those songs/ albums was to highlight everything that made Bon Jovi stand out and everything that is lacking in this particular song! I was not even asking for all those elements. Just one would have been enough...but...no!

Having clarified this, let's focus on the gist of it!

I don't want Bon Jovi to be "sounding all 80s & 90s again" in the sense you phrase it. I don't want them to re-release Slippery, or Jersey or Faith or These Days. They should simply sound like themselves. Great bands transcend decades and fashion, and make music that is first and foremost their own music, maintaining a certain level of quality. I admit, there aren't that many who are still relevant but I can start enumerating a bunch.

Extremely successful ones: Bruce Springsteen. AC/DC
Very successful ones: Pearl Jam. Iron Maiden
Moderately successful ones: Alice Cooper. The Scorpions

These are NOT nostalgia acts. Go to any of their concerts, listen to any of their recent records. NONE sound like it's 1985 - yet they all make honest genuine music that represents them as musicians in the 2010s. Do they get radio airplay? Some do, yes. Do they top the charts? No, they don't. Do they care about those aspects primarily? I don't know - but certainly, it is NOT mass appeal that they aim at when they release these records. Yet they remain extremely successful. Again, knowing the way you think, you will say: "if Bon Jovi sounded like Bruce Springsteen, they would be accused of blah blah blah!". And no, I am not saying they should sound like Springsteen either.

All I am saying is that Because We Can is a manufactured song that sounds like it has come from a song-factory where they mass-produce songs that make no sense, yet are consumed, because that's 'what works' today.
It sounds as if a bunch of untalented musicians came together and recorded some sound in a gutter, copied lyrics from a Scientology for beginners hymn book, recorded a guitar solo using one finger only on a piano keyboard, while the singer was not quite sure whether he was drowning or whether he should have used nose drops to breath better. When the 'product' was finished, they stamped BON JOVI on it and put it on itunes. It's like writing Ferrari on a Toyota (without insulting Toyota who make great cars).

And I was neither trying to insult anyone or act condescendingly. I do apologise if it did though.

I've read first BWC review here in the Czech Republic. The attention is higher because of the concert in June. They're making fun of Bon Jovi. They said that they wouldn't be surprised if selling the tickets to the show stopped because of how shitty is the single with uninspired and embarrassing lyrics and total po sound. They also mention that Bon Jovi were once a rock group but it is gone by now.

Spot on post!