The Circle Era
 

I suppose I am pretty rare in loving the Circle as an album, I acknowledge a lot of its faults mainly WFTWM and WWBTF but as a whole I think the album is solid. Happy Now, Learn to Love and Loves the only Rule are some of my favorite songs.

The tour that accompanied the album was the peak for me as I was to young too see any tours pre Lost Highway. I was wondering what you guys thought to the album many years on.

The other thing around the time Burning Bridges being released someone on the board pointed out that there was a torrent containing Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning and other alternate tracks, has anyone heard anything else from The Circle sessions?

I loved the album when it came out and still like it quite a lot.

This Ain't Love also came from the Circle sessions and was changed to This Is Love, This Is Life for the Greatest Hits release.

I have heard of a few more songs from the era I’ve Giving Me To You,
I’m On My Way, Second Chances and The Ghost Of A Good Thing. Hopefully we will get another box set one day!

How did you manage to listen to these songs?

He had heard "of" them, not in terms of listening to them.
They were registered at (I guess) ASCAP around the time The Circle was released, so it was assumed that they had been left-overs.

Yeah unfortunately I haven't heard them, would love too someday. The titles sound pretty interesting. There was a torrent floating around from 2009 with these songs and some from the circle under slightly different names but unfortunately it no longer works. I wonder if the alternate version of What Do You Got is from the circle sessions?

What Do You Got? was also demoed for the The Circle-sessions if I'm not mistaken.

That album definitely marked one of the most prolific writing periods for the band in recent years.

I would also love the hear the outtakes of The Circle someday, i'm pretty sure that they are all cool tracks but I doubt that they're amazing.

The Circle is a pretty cool album, I've always loved Live Before You Die, Love's The Only Rule, Brokepromiseland and Happy Now

I guess you never know with Bon Jovi outtakes, I prefer half the Bounce demos to the album and Nothing from HAND is one of the best Post 2000 songs for me.

Wow, surprised that Becky hasn't put a post up with 'I don't like The Circle'

I think it's a very very good album. I absolutely loved it for ages when it come out and listened to it all the time. Reminds me of sixth form in school in the winter. Loved it.

Some songs I look back on realize why I don't listen to them half as much anymore but some songs remind me of why I love the band. 'Brokenpromiseland' and 'Loves The Only Rule' are some of the best songs they've released in over 15 years.

I actually really like 'Happy Now' too. A lot of it is probably due to Jons 'aggressive' vocals which I love. Something about that song as an opener too...

It was a good album bar WFTWM


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Give me time, dammit. I have a job you know! Some of us have to work for for the working man! LOL

We Weren't Born To Follow (sucks most of all because it will be played forevermore)
When We Were Beautiful (cinematic and beautiful)
Work For The Working Man (I'm one of the few people who kind of likes this song. I don't feel like you have to live through something to be able to be empathetic towards it and I like the line about they took my ID because to so many people their job is such an integral part of their identity so I though that was pretty deep)
Superman Tonight (Actually quite like this song and enjoy hearing it on Sirius every once in a while)
Bullet (sucks)
Thorn In My Side (sucks)
Live Before You Die (sucks)
Brokenpromiseland (sucks)
Love's The Only Rule (like this one quite a bit)
Happy Now (would be the suckiest of them all but I will probably never have to hear it again unlike WWBTF)
Learn To Love (Okay, in an album full of sucks it's pretty good by comparison).


The most disappointing part of The Circle era to me is that it's the last time I got to see the band live. I was having medical issues during the WAN tour so I missed the Nashville show and I had just had surgery when they played Little Rock so I missed that one too. So while I enjoyed those shows because Bon Jovi has never put on a bad show when I saw them, it sure would be a buzzkill if the last time I saw the band live (and it was without Richie even then) was on THIS tour. Thankfully most of the Circle songs had already been thrown out of the set list by the time I saw them anyway.

To me it was a good album back then and still is a good album today.
The 2010/2011 tour was the best since These Days. Awesome shows and some great memories!

I quite enjoy The Circle. Superman Tonight, Love's the Only Rule and When We Were Beautiful... all great songs imo. The tour was brilliant as well (at least the Australian and European legs).

Will always remember The Circle tour as the tour that I finally got to hear I Believe live (Sydney night 3). Next on my list is Wild in the Streets (one can dream).

Jon’s review of the The Circle. Surprisingly honest!

https://twitter.com/joviupdates/stat...149620743?s=21


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Cold, lifeless album. One or two ok tracks but just awful for the most part.

Aside from 7800 I don't think I've really ever seen Jon be so openly negative about an album. I feel pretty much the same as him (except I can't stand Work For The Working Man)...it's refreshing to see the honesty....

The Circle has some good writing but the performances and the overall sound are so anemic. It's kind of a "shame about that" album. Some great hooks on there, and some great stuff written around that era.

The production absolutely killed the album - much like Fahrenheit back then. It's so stone-cold. And I agree with Jon, some songs I still like, but when I think back to how much I enjoyed the album upon its release, I've really grown tired of it. Stuff like Thorn In My Side or Happy Now which I liked back then feel so fabricated and lifeless now (to be fair, they already were back in 2009).
Some live performances showed that the album could've had much more potential. The golden moment of this album for me was this spine-chilling acoustic rendition with Jon and Richie switching lead vocals at the end:

Very refreshing (and surprised) to hear what Jon had to say about this one. I was never all that fussed on The Circle although it did have its moments. It’s definitely one of their weaker albums and I’d almost put it alongside What About Now and This House is Not for Sale.

I do appreciate that they moved away from trying to appeal to a “younger” audience on this album which is something I thought they were guilty of with Crush, Bounce and Have a Nice Day. Yet I still prefer those three over this one.

I wonder which ones he thinks don't hold up! Obviously it's not the ones he listed and (I assume) Love's the only rule, Happy Now, Thorn in my side and maybe Bullet?

We can all agree Fast Cars is one :)

Holy shit!!!
I was so shocked, when I saw this review.
This record has my favorites from the century: Love's the Only Rule and Brokenpromiseland
...and Jon considers them shit, oh well... :/

I'd assume Bullet, Live Before you Die, Brokenpromiseland, Fast Cars, Learn To Love

Perhaps Happy Now

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We don't know that those two are on the list. He listed 4 and said half the album doesn't hold up. LOTR was done so much on The Circle tour and came back sporadically on the following tour, safe to say that ain't one of them. I'd more look at the songs never even attempted live.

Yeah that'd be my guess too.

Same thought. Although some songs are not great, the album has an atmosphere that I like.

The album is one I still regularly listen to. Yes there are some duds on there but they are outweighed by some cracking tunes imo.

And as for the circle era tours, quite simply the best since the these days era so I will always look fondly on that era (even if some of the album tracks are rubbish)

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That I absolutely agree with!

I disagree with Jon and most of you on this one. I think The Circle was a great effort, one of the best 2000s album, in my opinion. Of course the production is a bit lifeless, but most of the songs are great.

Live Before You Die is one of the worst Bon Jovi songs, but even Fast Cars I started to like after a few years. And I think Learn to Love is a great song, one of the most underrated from the catalog.
On the other hand, Bullet I thought was awesome when it came out, now I don't think as highly.

Considering Limitless's chorus is heavily, let's say, "informed" by Brokenpromiseland, that's probably one he still likes.

And that song is a national treasure at my lonely apartment :-)
But I'd take a guess and say he also doesn't think highly of learn to love, brokenpromiseland, bullet, live before you die, and thorn in my side. But that's my guess based on the lack of plays and attention they got around that tour and since....

If we're going by how many times X songs were performed since release:

We Weren't Born to Follow (369)
When We Were Beautiful (126)
Work for the Working Man (113)
Superman Tonight (98 )
Love's the Only Rule (63)
Happy Now (24)
Thorn in My Side (20)
Bullet (3)
Brokenpromiseland (1)

I really thought Bullet was done more than that but I guess not. So Learn to Love, Fast Cars, Live before you die were the 3 never done. I'd say those are included for sure.

Since I became a fan in 2005, this was one of my favourite eras.

I remember the first time I heard Brokenpromiseland and thinking, "WOW!" ... then a year later when I heard, "This Is Love, This Is Life"

Controversial opinion, but for me The Circle is my fave Bon Jovi album from this century.

Then came the Tour. I saw them 4 times at The O2 in 2010, and then at Hard Rock Calling the following year. Out of the 11 times that I've been fortunate to see this band (2006-2019) HRC 2011 was the BEST experience.

It's a shame we are where we are with this Band, but I'm truly grateful at some of the memories I've experienced, especially The Circle Era :)

JBJ: "there's several on this record that I don't think they're very good. But, that's what happens with records you know you go back and you listen and you learn."
Hmmm...

Someone give him a copy of THINFS to listen to!


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The Circle Era
 

Circle isn’t a bad album but it isn’t great. I rarely listen to it from start to finish. I skip quite a few.
Born to follow - we had the debacle of no solo then Richie adding one.
The Shaalaas on Beautiful ruin a good effort.
Work for the working man is awful.


But....there’s some really good stuff on here like Thorn in my side, brokenpromiseland, fast cars, Loves the only rule and superman tonight.


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I really like Learn To Love. Live Before You Die and ESPECIALLY Fast Cars are terrible, though. Not a fan of When We Were Beautiful, either.

My Top 3: Brokenpromiseland, Thorn In My Side and Superman Tonight.
After Lost Highway, it was indeed a "return to a Rock record", it was a nice return. I like this album. Right, so so different from THINFS.

I have to agree with Jon.
Since the very first listening the day the album was released I didnt like it.
After all the years,its the album I less listen to,in fact,I cant remember when was the last time I did it.
Id only saved 3 songs from the album,WWWBeautiful,Thorn In My Side and Learn to Love.
Not only the bad production as you many had said,but the songs arent good and many of them are self plagiarism.
Born to Follow sounds similar to Born to be my baby,Working man same bass line to Prayer,Bullet same funky vibe to Faith,Learn to love,wich I like,is the first attemp prior to Amen to write a song similar to Hellellujah,Brokenpromised land and loves the only rule sound is very similar to Coldplay or even The Killers sound.
And then,you have Live Before You Die,Fast Cars and Working Man wich are ones of their worst songs ever.
Superman Tonight,wich is a fan favourite,as Jon says,I had never liked it,but is a personal taste,I admit is not a bad song.
In general,is their worst 2000s album,and,for me,their worst album ever.

I was disappointed about what Jon said, didnt expected that, but anyway I still enjoy a lot with that record

This is the album I love the most next to HAND because of the album itself and all the experiences lived in the 2010-2011 Tour, which I think is the 2nd best tour after These Days Era.

I really like it except Learn to Love and Fast Cars.

My faves are LTOR, Happy Now, Brokenpromiseland and WWWB.

Great atmosphere, great modern sound and great tour.