On the album version, JBJ’s vocal cuts through the heartland Celtic C&W nicely - awkward, helpful pragmatism aside - until he gets to the hackneyed line, “I’ll keep my social distance / What this world needs is a hug.” Ugh: There’s no vaccine for a lyric that cloying. There’s a scuffed-up twang to Bon Jovi’s voice on the COVID-19 rager “Do What You Can,” that we recognize, happily, from Jon’s platinum-plated, country-cousin duet with Jennifer Nettles, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.” There’s a better, more energized single version of “Do What You Can” out now featuring the Sugarland lady’s warbling lead vocals, as co-lead and in lustrous harmony with Bon Jovi. Then again, is such plain speaking so different than, say, JBJ’s Jersey brethren, Bruce Springsteen, and his current obsession with measuring brother and sisterhood in the ghosts we recall? “2020” is definitely starker than what we’ve come to expect from Bon Jovi. It is an unromantic brand of rock reportage from a guy who knows he has big money and white privilege, and says as much during the George Floyd killing-inspired “American Reckoning,” with the lyric “I’ll never know what it’s like to walk a mile in his shoes.” Not artful enough to be poetry, and not journalistic enough to be documentary, “2020” is Jon Bon Jovi – for better and worse – looking at the currency of what is with a bold face and an open heart.
WHEN IS NEW BON JOVI ALBUM COMING OUT SERIES
Discussed in an oddly plainspoken lyrical language, and in a voice deeper and craggier than expected, “2020” is corny in spots - really corny at times - but, manages to convey a series of deeply emotional messages about the state of what and who we are: in his view, a bunch of racist (“American Reckoning”) xenophobes (“Blood in the Water”) who expect men to die in service of this country, without giving them their due, or our respect (“Unbroken”). The sound of colorful parties and frat-rock now over, what’s left is the ups and downs - mostly downs - of “2020.” on Bon Jovi looks at the world around him in turmoil, and rather than see a glass half full, finds a rotted and empty vessel in need of replenishing and reimagining, with some kindness and good thrown into the cup for kind measure. Bon Jovi isn’t exactly presenting skeletal folk, either, but its new album, “2020,” is hardly the slick, bloated, fist-pumping rock of 1981’s “Runaway” and other tracks from their youthful hair-metal days.
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