[Iceman]

I thought this was pretty close:

Bon Jovi - The Circle

Jovi's last album was a counrty records. This time they've been on X-Factor. What's going on?

"I'm the CEO of a corporation who's been running a brand for 25 years", says Jon Bon Jovi in When We Were Beautiful, a documentary DVD that accompanies his band's eleventh studio album, The Circle. "I'm not some guy ina rock band."

Mmmm. Brand? Corporation? Really makes you want to hear The Circle, doesn't it?

Sentiments like those tend to reinforce the reputation JBJ has as a somewhat humourless purveyor of hugely skilful, artistically hollow music. At most, that perception is half-truth, as The Circle makes clear.

Rock stardom is supposed to be a vocation, not a job of work, although anyone who's ever been on the road for more than two or three days will tell you that a job is exactly what it can be, with it's repetitions and its demands.

Here, JBJ has turned his pragmatic nature into a virtue, both in the way he runs his business and in the way he allows its mundanities to connect him, however tenuosly, to the working man he spends much of his time thinking about.

If The Circle has an overaching theme, it is Bon Jovi's recurring one: the hope of escape from the quotidian. From Runaway and LOAP to WFTWM and Brokenpromiseland, it has run throughout his career.

Where someone like Bruce Springsteen is able to express the feeling in a nuanced, personal manner, JBJ's problem has often been his clodhopping way with words.

Throughout The Circle, dreams are shattered, stars fall from the sky, people are pushed down and knocked around and reminded to live before they die. It's a tin ear rather than a lack of effort, though: the exubarance of the music shows that. This is a record that's ultimately redeemed by some tremendous stadium rock tunes.

The biggest of those - and there are several big ones - is WWWB, but perhaps the best are a couple of [relatively] less heated moments, Fast Cars and Love's The Only Rule.

There's a hint in the album title that the band have arrived somewhere back around where they started, and in terms of an unabashed celebration of what they do best, it's true. But the real redeeming feature of both the record and, you'd suspect, of JBJ himself, is the rueful note now apparent in his sturdy, shopworn voice.

7/10
Jon Hotten

Personally, I would give The Circle a lower rating and I don't see or hear the redeeming qualities, but I agree with the CEO/corporation stuff and the bad lyrical content...

Ice

[Savvi]

I was expecting a much lower rating after reading the review. Talk about focusing on the negatives!

Im glad that WWWB and Love's the only Rule are considered some of the best tunes on the album but I am taken away by Fast Cars being included as one of 'the best' on the album. Its not a bad song IMO but I thought it would be taken badly by the critics.

7/10 aint bad.

[jovi 94]

for god sake the feckin lyrics are good

[jamesd]

Negative review and then gave it 7/10 - how odd!!

Still perplexed by people's criticism of The Circle. The best lyrics since These Days, the closest sound to 'traditional' Bon Jovi (stuff like Superman Tonight could have been on New Jersey) and some awesome guitar solos that have been missing in the post 2000 years.

It makes Crush, Bounce and most of Nice Day irrelevant to me. Proper Bon Jovi.

Yes, Jon's voice is not what it was - but I think they have made the best record they could have made in 2009, couldn't say that when Bounce, Crush and Nice Day came out.

[jovi 94]

Originally Posted by jamesd

Negative review and then gave it 7/10 - how odd!!

Still perplexed by people's criticism of The Circle. The best lyrics since These Days, the closest sound to 'traditional' Bon Jovi (stuff like Superman Tonight could have been on New Jersey) and some awesome guitar solos that have been missing in the post 2000 years.

It makes Crush, Bounce and most of Nice Day irrelevant to me. Proper Bon Jovi.

Yes, Jon's voice is not what it was - but I think they have made the best record they could have made in 2009, couldn't say that when Bounce, Crush and Nice Day came out.

nail square on the head

[yomamasofat]

Originally Posted by jamesd

(stuff like Superman Tonight could have been on New Jersey)

Uhhh, no it can't. I think the song is pretty good but nowhere close to anything in NJ (both in quality and style).

[† ÀžžÀ †]

i've expected worse but that's not too bad a review. i just find it laughable that any praise given to the band must come through gritted teeth.

[danfan]

Good reviews or bad reviews - Doesn't mean much to me one way or the other. As long as I like something, I could care less what someone else thinks of the music.

However, he is spot on as to his opinion about Jon's corporate attitude. Jon should apologize for that statement and never use it again.

[Matrix15]

Yep, best lyrics since These days - 'Think about it, wouldn't that be cool? If love's the only rule...'

[steel_horse75]

I love The Circle - its taken me a good few years to give up on my dream that the band release another New Jersey - they wont. Ive moved on.
So with that ill say The Circle is the best album since These Days.

I subscribe to Classic Rock and their record reviews are pretty much spot on.

But what makes me laugh is the amount of sentences it takes to get to the actual album review and when it does hardly any songs are mentioned.

I dont agree that WWWB is a great stadium tune as its too slow