Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Kerrang!Apr 12, 2013There's enough gritty social commentary and songwriting class amid the occasional cheese to suggest that, on the long road to credibility, Bon Jovi are finally more than halfway there. [9 Mar 2013, p.52]
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Mar 12, 2013The 12th Bon Jovi album extends the Springsteen liberalism in JBJ's stadiumrattling Jersey cheese into full-on "social commentary" (his term).
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Mar 11, 2013It's easy to excoriate this band for producing another corporate-rock album, dominated as ever by Jon Bon Jovi's increasingly leathery bark and Richie Sambora's relentlessly uplifting guitar lines, but it's hard to slate them for still feeling kinship with their own blue-collar backgrounds.
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Mar 21, 2013Over and over again What About Now pitches itself at the same commercially anthemic middle ground as U2, ideal for talent show montages and inspiring moments at award shows but ultimately anemic, soulless and forgettable.
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Mar 11, 2013What About Now suggests a few paths for progress, and an ambivalence about committing to any one of them, all under a comfort-zone haze of undifferentiated, low-ambition, lightly rootsy hard rock.
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Entertainment WeeklyMar 11, 2013What About Now has enough always-darkest-before-the-dawn positivity and bland arena-country warm fuzzies to chock a true believer. [15 Mar 2013,, p.62]
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Q MagazineApr 10, 2013Jovi's delivery of the usual cliches has a curious, sickly sheen. [May 2013, p.96]
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Mar 11, 2013The best way to enjoy What About Now is to not listen too closely, ignore the clumsy lyrics (“I feel just like Picasso, and you’re my masterpiece”), and ignore that it’s watered down U2 flirting with pop-country.
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Mar 11, 2013On the proper What About Now, the group is striving to sound big and important yet winds up sounding small.
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Mar 11, 2013Bon Jovi's 12th studio album finds them on familiar ground, arena-pleasing blue-collar anthems of everyday struggle sitting alongside overblown power ballads.
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Classic Rock MagazineJun 6, 2013Their most self-important but least memorable, engaging or relevant album yet. [Apr 2013, p.98]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 27 out of 56
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Mixed: 8 out of 56
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Negative: 21 out of 56
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Apr 13, 2013
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Mar 14, 2013
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Mar 12, 2013