Quote:
Originally Posted by rolo_tomachi
True. But even so, they are far from the rock. You look to Foo Fighters for example, they also touch things pop, rock, hard rock and grunge, which feels like a real rock band, like Bon Jovi in the nineties, you know. Best of You or The Pretender are songs that Bon Jovi could have done in the nineties or even early 2000, now Jon does not bother to do energetic things with powerfull guitars and big hooks. The music of recent years does not feel so good, it's not great jovi music, and no feel big.
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In my book the guitars are not the biggest problem for Bon Jovi to make a powerful record nowadays, even tough I would love some cool riffs and guitar figures.
It's so much more about Jon not being able to deliver vocal performances like he used to. He doesn't have the range anymore, the Amen chorus is really the highest they can make Jon sing these days on a record and not sounding to doctored. I don't think he has gone higher than a G4 since the Have a Nice Day album and you kind of needs to be singing in the higher registers if you want to make powerful arena rock songs like Bon Jovi tends to go for.
Songs like What About Now, Because We Can, We Weren't Born To Follow, What Do You Got and so on are sung so "low", even though I'm not sure that's the right way to describe it. If those songs were made during the 80s/90s they could have been fantastic songs with Jons range back then. The above mentioned songs never really kicks off, the melodys are great but they're losing its potential when sung in such a safe vocal register. Imagine having We Weren't Born To Follow in like C#m or Cm isntead of G#m, it would have been so much more energetic. I get why Jon is playing it safe as he physically can't sing like that anymore, and that's pretty sad. Bon Jovi has always been about the vocals and with such a limited singer that Jon has been for a while it's hard to write those arena songs. I'm not saying you can't, but there's a lot of truth in my statement.
Take a song like Lie To Me, it's a pretty slow song but when the second chorus kicks in and Jon goes for the higher octave it really bears the song on its own. A mid tempo song like Lie To Me has so much more energy then the modern "rock" Bon Jovi songs. Have a Nice Day, Undivided, It's My Life, I Am and so on are all modern songs where he actually goes for a more demanding vocal and those songs are among the most beloved songs done in the 2000s. Those have that powerufl energetic feel in the choruses. Imaging having Have a Nice Day in C#m in Am instead, it would lose so much power.
Maybe I'm a little indistinct, but I think you all can agree with me. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the post-2000 material and think What About Now has some great songwriting, but there's no use to think that Jon with his extremely limited range these days will ever deliver arena rock choruses to us again. He simply can't. Mid tempo rockers ala What About Now, Thorn In My Side, Whole Lot of Leavin etc. is what we can excpect, and for me, I'm fine with that. The old material is still there for us to enjoy.