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| Bon Jovi Forever Legendary Edition |
So the Legendary edition of Bon Jovi's Forever came out on October 24 but I wanted to let my thoughts marinate for a while before I posted about them. Obviously this is a re-release, so apart from a couple of new tracks, my thoughts will be about the duets, rather than the songs themselves. If you're interested in what I thought of the songs when the first Forever came out, check out my blog post from then: Track by track thoughts on Bon Jovi's Forever.
The Legendary edition featured duets with James Bay, Robbie Williams, Jelly Roll, Jason Isbell, Ryan Tedder, Billy Falcon, The War and Treaty, Joe Elliott, Lainey Wilson, Avril Lavigne, Marcus King, Bruce Springsteen, and Carin Leon. It also opens with new track "Red, White and Jersey", which I wrote about back in August, and the Japanese edition contains "Fight Somebody" which I'll mention in a bit.
But first the main album. Overall? I like it enough, but while there are some great duets on the album, there are quite a few that made me think "why did they bother?". Mostly the ones with other male vocalists where they've basically just swapped verses. Yawn. The best, or at least most interesting, ones have been where the other vocalist has a vastly different voice to Jon and they changed or added something instrumentally. Everything else is okay but a bit meh.
With that in mind, my top 3 are:
1. Hollow Man featuring Bruce Springsteen -- I already wrote about "Hollow Man" when it came out but goddamn Bruce's harmonies and that harmonica just elevates that track so far beyond what it was originally.
2. I Wrote You a Song featuring Lainey Wilson -- I basically dismissed this track as a poor man's "Thinking Out Loud" on the original album, but holy heck... Jon and Lainey sound really good together. Their voices blend so well, and I don't get my hackles up about the country flavour so the instrumentation was cool too. Actually worth the duet, unlike some of the phoned-in ones on the rest of the album.
3. The People's House featuring The War and Treaty -- When "The People's House" duet originally came out more than a year ago, I was still trying to decide if I liked it more than the version on the original album. I'm now very confident I do -- it's more invigorating and inspiring than the original, which I have no problem with, but this one's just better IMO.
Side note: "Walls of Jericho" is probably my favourite track from Forever, and I like me some Def Leppard, so I do enjoy the duet with Joe Elliott... but I don't think it's anything special as far as collaborations go.
Bon Jovi also performed "Legendary", "Red White and Jersey" in a livestream on October 22, in which they announced a baby, four-city tour (New York City, Edinburgh, Dublin, London). Since the original announcement, they've added more shows in NYC (now a total of 9) and London (now 2).
Still hardly what I'd call a world tour, but to be honest, Jon still sounds pretty fragile on the stream. I'm guessing the tour is testing the waters a little to see if they're capable of handling any more. The thinness in his voice could be physical, psychological, or a combination of both but hopefully he pulls through these shows well. He may never get back to his best, but I'm rooting for something like 2010/11 era vocals.
Anyway, I said I'd circle back to "Fight Somebody" didn't I? Check it out if you haven't already:
I think it's awesome. I'm currently in a good enough position that I don't mind shipping stuff over from Japan (plus I've never been the smartest maker of financial decisions when it comes to Bon Jovi, lol) but come on. This should've been on the version that everyone gets, right? Not the first time I've felt that way about a bonus track and I'm sure it won't be the last.
Feel free to share your thoughts below. 😊
