The Circle (Bon Jovi album)
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''The Circle'' is the eleventh studio album by American
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Bon Jovi Bon Jovi is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 1983 in Sayreville, New Jersey. It consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarist Phil X, and bassist Hugh McDonald (American musician), Hugh McD ...
. Released on November 10, 2009, the album was produced by
John Shanks John Matthew Shanks (born December 18, 1964) is an American songwriter, record producer and guitarist. Early life and education John Matthew Shanks was born in New York City. Shanks moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 years old. He was in a ban ...
. The album debuted at number 1 in several countries, including the U.S., where it sold 163,000 copies in its first week.Caulfield, Keith
"Bon Jovi Comes Full 'Circle' at No. 1 on ''Billboard'' 200"
billboard.com. November 18, 2009.
''The Circle'' marks the band's return to their
hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
sound after a brief venture into
country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
with their previous album '' Lost Highway''.


Recording and production

In an interview given to ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', former Bon Jovi guitarist
Richie Sambora Richard Stephen Sambora (born July 11, 1959) is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Bon Jovi from 1983 to 2013. He and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi formed the main songwri ...
says the album is a return to "rock and roll" and said "There’s going to be some big choruses on there. It sounds like Bon Jovi, but it sounds fresh. We experimented with a lot of new sounds and had a really good time working with John Shanks, who is also a really good guitar player, so he and I did a lot of ‘weaseling’ with the guitar sounds. There are a lot of really good guitar sounds and new kind atmospheres on the new Bon Jovi record, that I think makes it really modern. I think people are going to dig it, man. And it rocks hard." In an interview on UK radio station
Absolute Radio Absolute Radio is a British National radio station owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Absolute Radio Network. It broadcasts nationally across the UK via Digital audio broadcasting and on 1215 kHz MW. History 1993–1997: Virg ...
,
Jon Bon Jovi John Francis Bongiovi Jr. (born March 2, 1962), known professionally as Jon Bon Jovi, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor. He is best known as the founder and frontman of the rock band Bon Jovi, which was formed in 1983. He ...
stated the album title has multiple meanings. It stands for the fact that a circle is never ending, and that it also refers to Bon Jovi's inner circle – stating that "in this organization, the circle is very difficult to get into, and even more difficult to get out of." The lead single, "We Weren't Born to Follow" is about the tough times we are experiencing in this economic crisis. "Superman Tonight" was released as the second single followed by "When We Were Beautiful" as the third single, all of which featuring music videos. ''Work For The Working Man'' which was released as a promo single was also written about the DHL plant that closed in
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Before the official release of the album, U.S. President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
's chief adviser David Axelrod had the lyrics to "Work for the Working Man" framed and hung in his
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
office. The album is the first record since 1988's ''
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
'' not to feature bonus tracks (all the subsequent albums from 1992's ''
Keep The Faith ''Keep the Faith'' is the fifth studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi, released on November 3, 1992, by Mercury Records. It is Bon Jovi's last studio album to feature all five original band members as bass guitarist Alec John Such was dism ...
'' through to 2007's '' Lost Highway'' have included songs not available in the United States). Lead singer Jon Bon Jovi has stated that there were one or two songs that he left off the album that could have been bonus tracks which he wanted to keep for the ''
Greatest Hits A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...
'' album.


Release and reception

''The Circle'' received mixed reviews from critics. At ''
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
'', which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 52 out of 100, which indicates "mixed or average reviews" based on 10 reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from ''
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
'' gave the album 2 stars out of 5 stating that "A knack for oversized choruses remains hardwired in Bon Jovi, but in this gloomy context, they act as reminders that they once sounded like they were a working band for working men instead of rich men fretting about a world they've long left behind". Gary Graff from ''
Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'' gave the album 4 out of 5 stars saying that "The New Jersey group gets back to the business of rocking on its 11th studio album, The Circle". Whitney Pastorek from ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' gave the album C grade by saying "Between cliches and Jon's strained voice, The Circle just feels tired". Mikael Wood from ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' gave the album 1.5 stars out of 4 stating that "The Circle shows off Bon Jovi's still-sharp knack for wedding blandly optimistic sentiments to predictably soaring choruses. Unfortunately, it's getting pretty hard to tell one song from the next". Christian Hoard from ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' gave the album 3 stars out of 5 by saying "It does rock--if your idea of rock is
Aerosmith Aerosmith is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Boston in 1970. The group consists of Steven Tyler (lead vocals), Joe Perry (musician), Joe Perry (guitar), Tom Hamilton (musician), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums) and Brad Whi ...
doing
Diane Warren Diane Eve Warren (born September 7, 1956) is an American songwriter. She has received several awards including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three ''Billboard'' Music Awards and an Honorary Academy Award. Wa ...
songs". Scott McLennan from ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' made a mixed review about the album stating that "Slick production and beer-ad bombast grease these 12 tracks. Lead singer Jon Bon Jovi has yet to meet a cliche he can’t work into a song". The album topped the
Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of art ...
chart when it debuted, but by the next week, it suddenly dropped to number 19. The Circle debuted at the number-one position with sales of around 67,000 copies on the Japanese
Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...
weekly album charts, becoming their fifth number-one album on the Japanese chart. Because of the album's number-one debut, Bon Jovi tied the Oricon charts' record for having five number-one albums as a Western artist, which was held by
Mariah Carey Mariah Carey (; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. Referred to as the " Songbird Supreme", she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style and signature use of the whi ...
and
Simon & Garfunkel Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music groups of the 1960s, and their biggest hits—including the electric remix of " ...
.


Track listing


Personnel

;Bon Jovi *
Jon Bon Jovi John Francis Bongiovi Jr. (born March 2, 1962), known professionally as Jon Bon Jovi, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor. He is best known as the founder and frontman of the rock band Bon Jovi, which was formed in 1983. He ...
– lead vocals *
Richie Sambora Richard Stephen Sambora (born July 11, 1959) is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Bon Jovi from 1983 to 2013. He and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi formed the main songwri ...
– guitars, backing vocals *
David Bryan David Bryan Rashbaum (born February 7, 1962) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the keyboard player for the rock band Bon Jovi, with which he also co-wrote songs and performed backing vocals. In 2018, Bryan was inducted into ...
– keyboards *
Tico Torres Hector Juan Samuel "Tico" Torres (born October 7, 1953) is an American musician, artist, and entrepreneur, best known as the drummer, percussionist, and a songwriter for American rock band Bon Jovi. In 2018, Torres was inducted into the Rock ...
– drums, percussion ;Additional musicians * Charlie Judge – additional keyboards and
strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
* Hugh McDonald – bass guitar ;Technical personnel *
John Shanks John Matthew Shanks (born December 18, 1964) is an American songwriter, record producer and guitarist. Early life and education John Matthew Shanks was born in New York City. Shanks moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 years old. He was in a ban ...
producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...
* Jon Bon Jovi – co-producer * Richie Sambora – co-producer * Jeff Rothschild –
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
* Mike Rew – additional engineer * Obie O'Brien – additional engineer * Alex Gibson – additional engineer * Lars Fox –
Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...
editing * Bob Clearmountain – mixing * Brandon Duncan – mixing assistant * George Marino – mastering * Kevin Westenberg – band photography * Kirk Edwards Photography – additional photography * Andy West Design –
art direction Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the visi ...
and
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
* Lynne Bugai – album title and design * Carol Corless – package producer


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


Certifications


Release history


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Circle Bon Jovi albums 2009 albums Albums produced by John Shanks Island Records albums Mercury Records albums Albums produced by Richie Sambora