There's something about Bon Jovi's latest album that will leave its listeners thirsty. Maybe it's the satanic Kool-Aid Man grazing the cover. Or, maybe it's a thirst for something new, shocking, unprecedented and above all else, for something that strays away from everything "Bon Jovi." But what Have A Nice Day, the New Jersey quartet's ninth original studio album, offers instead is a sound consistent with the rock/pop, Def Leppard meets Springsteen genre they made famous 20 years ago. And with their hair still teased and their leather pants still tightly fastened, Bon Jovi isn't trying to prove that the '80s are back, but rather seem adamant the '80s never left.
Although the girls who went wild back during Bon Jovi's debut may currently be loading their 2.5 kids, dog and soccer equipment into the mini-van parked in their suburban garage, they won't be able to resist a trip down a foggy memory lane, evoked by the release of Nice Day. For Bon Jovi fans, the album is sure to solidify their devotion, while leaving everyone else calmly indifferent. But with a fan base of over 100 million, Bon Jovi doesn't seem to really care about everyone else.
As a symbolic representative of the album as a whole, the CD's opening line "Why, you wanna tell me how to live my life?" resonates with at least a dozen other Bon Jovi tracks, most notably the hits "It's My Life" and "Livin' on a Prayer." Perhaps Jon Bon Jovi and company are genuinely passionate on living their life in a certain manner, or perhaps they really are that pathetically uncreative.
It's a true paradox of musicianship — the effort they exude for such minimal results is quite remarkable. For all of the time he's spent in the spotlight and all of the hits he's had, it's quite unfortunate that Mr. Bon Jovi cannot produce music that evokes much more than a half-hearted shrug from listeners. His best attempt comes with the title track, a song written in response to Bush's re-election. It's the bitter love child of "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "It's My Life," and although it may be more sarcastic than the band's normally optimistic tracks, with lyrics like "Shining like a diamond/ rolling with the dice/ Standing on the ledge show the wind how to fly/ When the world gets in my face/ I say, 'Have A Nice Day'" the song comes off as bombastic at best.
The aggressive "Last Man Standing," allegedly written as an ode to Bob Dylan, comes up short of being inspirational when listeners realize the song, consisting of lyrics like "Take your seats now, folks/ It's showtime/ Hey, Patrick — hit the lights/ There's something in the air/ There's magic in the night" was simply penned to create an energetic show-opener. Its pseudo-rock style is sure to be forgotten before the concert formally awakens, if anyone was even paying attention in the first place.
Perhaps though, with a closer look, Have A Nice Day does offer something relatively new for Bon Jovi — a lot less hard rock. With all four member sporting wedding rings, 40-plus years of life and drug-free urine, Bon Jovi has softened their sound, sticking mainly to the arena anthems like the "Livin' on a Prayer" inspired "I Want To Be Loved" that have proved to be successful in the past. It's not that they don't rock; it's just that they don't rock very hard. They fail to rock with the energy and aggression like they once did. Although their look and attire haven't changed over the last two decades, sometime between 1986's Slippery When Wet and the release of Have A Nice Day Bon Jovi lost their dangerous edge.
It was their goal to go south with this album, to experiment with that increasingly popular country-rock sound. The missing rock in a variety of the album's tracks has been replaced by a gentle sway. "Who Says You Can't Go Home " sounds like a country song just by its title, and discovering it's actually a duet with country group Sugarland's main signer Jennifer Nettles might intrigue fans of the genre. The harmonization is actually fairly impressive, producing a song that isn't quite as sappy as lyrics like "I been there, done that/ But I ain't looking back on the seeds I've sown/ Saving dimes spending too much time on the telephone/ Who says you can't go home" might indicate.
Forget some of the flops like the flavorless and overly produced "Bells of Freedom" and the offensive "Last Cigarette" and sprinkle some of the relatively better tracks like "I Want To Be Loved" and the shamefully addicting "Complicated" on top of their established classics from years back and listeners will find themselves at a nostalgic Bon Jovi show, simultaneously head-banging and crying with all the other crimped hair, whiskey-scented fans surrounding them.
Bottom line: Bon Jovi fans will find this album satisfying; all others should stay away, and please don't tell the members of Bon Jovi how to live their lives — you might inspire them to write another song.
Grade: C
