Thursday night turned into Friday morning.
[Video][Website]
[4.10]
Jonathan Bogart: He was never Kris Kristofferson, but Jon Bon Jovi used to be able to write a lyric that disarmed you with the weird specificity of its imagery. Now his lyrics are as generic as the tired rave-up of the music.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Releasing an album and notifying your fans that it’s a contractual obligation is a good way to tell yours fans “I didn’t even care enough about you to make some good songs,” and this is Exhibit A. I mean, JBJ is no poet in his finest moments, and this ain’t one of his finest moments. (Also, when did he swallow a pond full of gravel? His voice is shot.)
[2]
Alfred Soto: “Yes, yes, it did, Jon. And your voice sounds like it doesn’t know Saturday night from Tuesday afternoon.”
[2]
Iain Mew: Often sounding like other songs is a distraction, but sometimes it works out. Here the familiar verses (Taylor Swift) and chorus (Pulp’s “Disco 2000”, with “I never thought I’d hear the church bells ringing” almost a quote) are a nice combination adds something for me to an otherwise not very dynamic rock song. Hints of flavours that I hadn’t realised fit so well, enlivening a bland dessert. The bridge ending from “American Pie” is a touch too far though.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: It is immaculate that despite the sliiiiiiightest of image transitions over time, Bon Jovi have not stopped writing the same song again and again and again. I mean, this is every Bryan Adams song once we get into the chorus, and I’m dead that the bridge is on the border of Ronettes and Def Leppard. There is nothing you can do to this song, really, it is very New Jersey-style blue collar steam engine of a jam anthem, and this man will write that same song and do it so well. I’m not sure how you pull that off.
[6]
Anthony Easton: This makes me feel like Asleep on the Wheel talking about Luke Bryan. There is something disrespectful of carpetbaggers who don’t even bother learning the genre before they think they are good enough just to plow through. Dull and unimaginative, and beneath below both Nashville and Bon Jovi.
[2]
Scott Mildenhall: Shayne Ward’s contract-killing cover of “Gotta Be Somebody” is one of Nickelback’s greatest gifts to the world, so it’s understandable that Bon Jovi would want to try similar while pretending the result was an original composition. “Gotta Be Somebody” is only the third best Shayne Ward single, of course, but it renders this redundant.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Most Bon Jovi up to and including “It’s My Life” holds up surprisingly well. But here “Saturday night” and “Sunday morning” are appropriate; from the kick drum on down this sounds like the second-place song in a praise band setlist.
[4]
Megan Harrington: The most exciting revelation of “Saturday Night” is that Bon Jovi phoning it in sounds just as anthemic, almost as great as Bon Jovi at their pretty boy rock peak. They have a formula, sure, but it’s as tried, tested, and true as Rum Raisin.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Like I would even know what Bon Jovi phoning it in sounds like.
[3]