THIS LEFT FEELS RIGHT...GREATEST HITS WITH A TWIST
What do you do when you're a multi-platinum selling, superstar musical outfit, and you grow weary of playing the same songs over and over again?
Well, you can branch off into a solo career and get whatever creativity you're not expressing in your band out. You can also start acting in Hollywood films to try and give your career a little boost. You could also re-work and rearrange your biggest songs into brand new tracks by changing the instrumentation, altering the melodies, and slowing down the tempo. Well, if you're BON JOVI, you choose to take twelve of your most successful songs, rockers and ballads, and re-tool them. The end result is a little bit more than just a 'Greatest Hits' compilation (a release usually puked out when bands disintergrate, or record companies are struggling for holiday releases to put on the shelves).
This Left Feels Right: Greatest Hits With a Twist is a dozen of the band's hits in more mellow, or perhaps, more mature presentation.
It's an admirable challege for any band to take on; re-writing songs you've performed hundreds, if not thousands of times. For most fans, there's only going to be one way to hear "Wanted Dead Or Alive" or "You Give Love A Bad Name", and I can't say the alternate versions are blowing my shorts off. They're not BAD songs, but they're not the orginals. There's a reason the original versions of these songs were so popular. They were strong; they were punchy. Jon Bon Jovi was shrieking out the lyrics as if he actually gave a shit about the words he was writing. The refined versions are still hummable, but they lack the kick that their ancestors had.
Now, even though some of the new versions aren't so hot ('Wanted Dead Or Alive' and 'You give Love a Bad Name' should have been left alone), there are a few tracks that would actually make you go out and buy this disc if you're a Bon Jovi die-hard. "Livin' on A Prayer" is very passionate with the addition of Olivia d'Abo on vocals that you're so used to hearing Richie Sambora belt out. "It's My Life" is the non-boy band version of the song that probably should have been on
Crush, and it's definitely a reason to check out
This Left Feels Right.... "Bed Of Roses" isn't too shabby either. Come to think of it, most of the re-worked ballads are handled very well on this disc. "Everyday" shouldn't be on here. It's too new, and it's not a "Classic" (who knows, maybe the European fans will cream their shorts over this new version). Anyone listening for the trademark Jon Bon Jovi howl isn't going to get it. His delivery on every track is in a much lower register, and quite raspy (maybe because belting out songs so fiercely for so many years has taken its toll on his throat, but that's only a guess... he might have simply felt like singing low).
I don't think Bon Jovi are trying to attract any new fans with this disc; this is simply a treat for the faithful. It isn't often that a band can re-present their OWN material so effectively, so fans of the band should scoop this up just so they have another reason to whack off to the guys from Sayreville, New Jersey who made good.
