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Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative

Kelly Clarkson’s My December – Has She Found Her Own Style Finally?

When someone as popular as Kelly Clarkson releases an album, I really should come out with a review fast. Real fast, like on the same day. However, lately my life has turned busy so sorry guys for the delay. Nevertheless, Kelly Clarkson’s “My December” has jumped the queue of the coming soon list.

Big question to myself after listened to “My December” for a good number of times is: why didn’t Clarkson stick with her previous formula and release a popular but forgettable album? We all agree that her “Thankful” and “Breakaway” are both great album. Easy to the ears, great melody, but unfortunately easy to be forgotten too.

Another big shocking revelation to myself is that I thought I have heard all that pop rock has offered. Majority of my collection are from that genre. Then I realised one little detail from Clarkson’s 3rd album that makes me want to go back to my collection and to pay that extra attention again.

So what is that big shocking revelation? “My December” is predominantly a rock album with lots of electric guitar sound and drum and it sounds strange to me that except the first 10 seconds of so, Kelly Clarkson’s vocals fill the entire song literally from beginning till end. Hardly are there any gap for the instruments at all – be it as slow or fast songs. Not sure if it is just me, I found it strange. I am used to rock music having space for the guitar solos and so on. That usually makes the music more memorable, to me at least.

But that is not necessarily bad news. Because Kelly Clarkson has a great and versatile voice. And I can certainly see the footprint of her ex-boyfriend all over the entire album. In her 3rd album, Clarkson has decided to participate in the songwriting for all her songs. That makes this album more honest, more personal. This also makes “My December” one dimensional in terms of topic and some songs are outstanding while some are not really on par. The standard is varied.

I particularly like some of the more unusual songs from “My December”. Hands down to the last track “Irvine”, the real gem of the entire album. It is just her and the acoustic guitar with this slow song split into two parts having a 1 minute silence in between. This close to 9 minutes song captures Clarkson’s emotions well. Part one of “Irvine” is a song of desperation. Part two is a song of recovery with a hint of angst and musically it is mixed with the old record sound. This hidden track is called “Chivas”.

Other slow songs I love are “Sober” and “Maybe”. Both are beautifully composed and executed. I love the ambiance created by “Sober” and I love how “Maybe” starts with just acoustic guitar, and then drum, and finally the song explodes into a full rock ballad. Some may like the single “Never Again” – a fast rock song. My pick would be the more unusual “Haunted” and “Yeah”. The music of “Haunted” somehow reminds me of Evanescence.

So in total I did a count. I love 6 songs out of 13. Rumor says that the record company nearly can this album. Some may think that Clarkson has committed a career suicide. She defied the record company, fired her manager, and cancelled her tour due to disappointing sales. The real test is how many American Idol fans are going to stick by Clarkson after this change in music direction. Kelly Clarkson would have my full support had the quality of her songwriting was more consistent and to stay with one style – probably more of the acoustic type and let her vocal shines. As for her next album, if any, I think I will make some serious sampling before purchasing it. Not that I don’t love her voice. I just not sure if she will change her music direction again.

“My December” is not as forgettable compares to her other albums. It is short of a great album though it has some great songs sung by a great voice.

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Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 3 – $0.50

A genuine smile dissolves the deepest frown. Try it wherever you can. Think of something happy when you smile. To whoever you meet.

Time to buy my favorite gaming magazine from my favorite news-stand near Cynthia’s office. The news-stand assistance and I smiled at each other from afar. Like long lost friend. I pulled out the magazine from the box. Price tag said $7. He said $7. I jerked backward so sudden that he jerked backward too and laughed.

“$7?! You always give me a discount!” I said with a big smile not sure why I said these words in the first place. Oscar winning performance on my part.

$6.50 he charged me. Simple as that. My ERP going home was somewhat covered.

Met my good old friend SW for two games of pool (0-2, I lost). Haven’t seen him for half a year. Over the pool table, a thought came into my mind. Then a vision followed. Job search is like playing pool. Except when start, besides the white ball, there are no colored balls visible on the pool table. And the table is exceptionally large. But you know there are plenty of balls on the table. Jobs are everywhere. You just cannot see them.

Then you spend a lot of time shooting the white ball in different directions. You spend a lot of time not shooting and ponder why no colored balls are visible instead. And you spend a lot of time doing nothing because you are bored of shooting air.

Just when you want to shoot darts instead, your supposed last shot hit an invisible ball and it turns visible. The visible ball hits some other neighboring invisible balls and they too become visible. Suddenly you have more targets on the pool table. Some take forever to roll towards a pocket. And some disappear on the way to the pocket.

Pretty much like in real life, SW shot multiple balls into the pockets one after another and so did I (out of the extraordinary), in this pool of visible and invisible job opportunities, there are days when you can hardly breath just preparing for interviews.

The search continues. And I have less than 50 km to find my job (more will be revealed later).

Stay tuned.

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews

My Wife Is A Gangster 3 – I Nearly Cried & I Laughed Till My Stomach Cramped

Once in a while, a man has to go solo putting behind the power of 3 (of our Movie Review Squad). Here is my story.

After 7 years of living with Cynthia, I surrender. I just am not a good shopping partner when it comes to office-wear. Most of the time, I am not excited. And when I am, we both gasp at the price tag. I love fashion but fashion comes with a price. One evening I looked at a sea of shoes for ladies, I had an idea. I suggested to Cynthia to go out shopping with her lady colleagues (in order to liberate me of that role) and she did just that. Cynthia and MW (a very pleasant young lady from Malaysia) went shopping together today (Sunday) and she has spent a rather astonishing amount of money. On the same night, Cynthia lined up a parade of trophies that were enough to cover the entire bed and beyond. What a way to celebrate commemorate the 1st day of the 2% GST hike.

Knowing that I would probably have nothing much to do from the moment I dropped Cynthia off at Orchard to meeting Cynthia and her friend MW for dinner, I thought catching a movie would be a great idea. As I have not met my buddy KF since his return from Mount K, what better way to catch up with him and then four of us have dinner together?

Unfortunately I could not contact KF in time (he did join us for the dinner in the end), I have to pick a movie to watch alone. I chose the sneak preview of “My Wife Is A Gangster 3” that was shown in the odd timing of 3pm. I have no issue watching movies alone as I often do that whenever I cannot find a movie partner at the spur of a moment.

I walked into the theater with no expectation especially after watching “Death Proof” recently (a great movie by the way and what else can possibly thrill me after that?). I think I may have watched the 1st episode of “My Wife Is A Gangster” and from what I read, this 3rd episode does not quite gel with the previous two episode. In “My Wife Is A Gangster 3”, the beautiful Shu Qi is the main actress of this Korean movie franchise that has nothing to do with the previous installments. Those who love the franchise may not like this discontinuity.

To give you a quick overview of this Chinese-Korean movie and to illustrate how diverse this movie is, from the language perspective:

70% Korean, 20% Mandarin, 10% Cantonese

And from the movie genre perspective:

50% Comedy, 20% Drama, 20% Action, 10% Romance

As the story goes, A-ryong (played by “Shu Qi”), the daughter of one of the gangster bosses in Hong Kong, caught in the middle of a gang conflict and upon the request of her father, she left Hong Kong and into a country of her choice – Korea. There, she was under the protection of a Korean gang that is in a different kind of conflict with other gangs. Gi-chul (played by “Lee Beom-soo”) together with his 2 subordinates were put in charge as a guide to protect A-ryong. And the story pretty much zigzags between Hong Kong and Korea from then on.

There are many things I love about this movie. When filmed in Hong Kong, it has the typical intense gang drama and action and the moment the location is switched to Korea, I just could not stop laughing at the comedy. The contrast of the gangsters from these two locations (fearful and deadly feel versus comical acting) makes this movie one notch above the Asia movies I have watched.

I often get put off by actors and actresses trying to speak a foreign language throughout the movies that require them so (with some exceptions). I was prepared to see Shu Qi speaks in Korean or the Koreans speak in Chinese. But no, each speaks in his or her native language. To bridge the language barrier, the film-maker has thrown in a translator. And because the translator at times does more than translating the original message, that makes the movie such a joy to watch. With my limited exposure to Asian films, I have not seen films that exploit this translator’s role into great comedy materials.

Talking about originality, besides having a translator that takes on his or her personality, there are quite a few scenes that are original. I am not going to post the spoilers here and you will have to watch it to find out yourself. I love the car chasing scene and I bet you one popcorn set (if you buy me the ticket) that you have never seen anything like that before.

Yes, there are moments when I was so touched by the drama that I nearly shed a tear. There are moments when I laughed till my stomach cramped. And the action scene are beautifully filmed. Almost remind me of Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill” when I saw Shu Qi in action. I have always been a big fan of Shu Qi. In this movie, you will see her coldness, her coolness, her sweetness, a bit of her sexiness as well as her vulnerability. She can be so adorable when she smiles. As icing on the cake, the soundtrack does the job well to blend in with some of the action scenes.

I love “My Wife Is A Gangster 3” and I will certainly get the DVD when it is out. Do I recommend this movie to everybody? Only for those who enjoy Chinese action-drama and Korean comedy-romance and are open to the idea of the combination of these two unique cultures.

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Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative

Missy Higgins’s “On A Clear Night” – Brilliance Voice Over Mediocre Music

It pains me much to write such a title because I have great respect to those who write the lyrics and music of all the songs in the album. Missy Higgins’s debut album “The Sound Of White” is brilliant and should not be missed. If you have not heard of her music, I strongly recommend “The Sound Of White” instead.

Australian singer songwriter Missy Higgins’s key selling point is her honey like mellow voice with a good texture and she has the right technique to control her voice. She may not have a big voice but she certainly has an unique one. That pretty much matches all the mellow songs of hers perfectly. If you are not familiar with Missy Higgins’s music, I urge you to check out the video clip of The Special Two. I have also found two live clips from her previous album as well – Scar and The Sound Of White.

“The Sound Of White” is very piano-driven while “On A Clear Night” is more band-driven. I often think that if the artist’s voice is unique enough, he or she can almost get away with mediocre music. It may be true in this case because while “On A Clear Night” may not have the same level of sparks as her debut, “On A Clear Night” is now certified nine times platinum and is one of the highest selling Australian albums of all time. It is quite an admirable achievement consider that Missy Higgins is originally an Indie singer from Melbourne (how many indie singers from non-US and non-UK countries are well known worldwide?).

There are some tracks from this album that I do enjoy such as “Sugarcane” and “Where I Stood”. Below is the video of “Where I Stood” and if you want more, try out “Steer” – her first single from “On A Clear Night”. On the record, I am still glad that Missy Higgins has released another good album that has added to my music collection. I just wish that it was as brilliant as her previous one.

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Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof – Part One Of Grindhouse

From the writer and director of “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Jackie Brown”, and “Kill Bill”, Quentin Tarantino has created yet another classic this time in the Grindhouse style. If you like his works, especially the earlier ones (less fantasy and more realism), there is no reason for you to miss “Death Proof” – a believable story of a mad stunt man killing groups of women with his “death proof” car. To better appreciate “Death Proof”, you have to understand where “Grindhouse” comes from.

Grindhouse cinemas, made popular in the 1970s, mainly showed double featured B-rated exploitation movies back to back with one another. Exploitation film belongs to a movie genre whereby lurid contents is focused upon in the expense of production quality. Hence explains Death Proof’s aspects of forbidden sex, wanton violence, drug use, and nudity. And I would expect Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” – the 2nd film of the double featured “Grindhouse” – to cover the rest of the aspects of freaks, monsters, destruction, rebellion, and mayhem.

If you are familiar with Quentin Tarantino’s style, you should expect no less from “Death Proof”. The script is refreshing, lively, and at times pornographic; the cinematography is brilliant in bringing out the mood of the film through change in color filters, effects, and lighting; the acting is excellent (I strongly believe that director has a part to play in how actors act); the action scene is entertaining and engaging. “Death Proof” does not have a lot of blood and gore scenes like “Kill Bill”. But when it does, the scenes are very real (be warned). The dialogue between the groups of girls itself worth the re-watch value with the camera floating seamlessly as the subject of focus is changed. As a guy, I love the car chasing scene – probably one of the best I have seen. And as for Cynthia, she was clapping and screaming in joy towards the end of the show. I personally find it a bit odd and I guess it is a girl thing. From the storyline perspective, Quentin Tarantino has once again demonstrated his stroke of genius by making a 2-hour long movie from a simple story that can be summed up in one sentence. And finally, it is illegal to walk away from a Quentin Tarantino film without thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack (pay attention to the ring-tone of one of the actresses). The part when one of the girls keeps changing the music in a jukebox as the conversation proceeds is one of my favorites. The song from the ending credits has such an infectious tone that there is a high chance I am getting the soundtrack just because of that song (anyone else loves that song besides me?).

Now, if you prefer a light entertainment and find explicit languages offensive, you may be in for a huge disappointment. There is a trailer for “Death Proof” but I strongly recommend against watching it if you are going to watch the movie anyway. For the undecided ones, check out the trailer to see if this is the sort of movie you may enjoy.

For true fans of Quentin Tarantino only: I have watched the interview from the directors and the selected cast a while back. This video clip may be a put off even for those who enjoy the movie but for the true fans, we just want more.

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Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 2 – Lost In Translation

She speaks. I listen. She finishes her question. I translate.

You speak. I listen. You finish your answer. I translate.

She smiles. You smile. While I anticipate the next string of words in either language.

She tells a story. I translate at each suitable interval. I speak while I listen. I listen while I speak. It is a long story.

You find the story interesting so you interject with a witty remark. I speak while I listen to your remark. I translate your remark while listening to her speaks. And the story continues.

I think while I translate. I translate while I listen. I listen while I think. Now, I wish to interject. Because the story got me interested. Two languages. One after another. Every time I make a comment.

She smiles. You smile. And I smile because of the oddity of speaking all the time. In both languages. Most of the time I am talking into space. Soon, I am lost in translation.

If that is not odd enough, now it is time for me to tell a story. In two languages. In near real time. Are you ready?

I saw a dog on the street, listening to music.
我在街上看見一隻狗，傾聽音樂。

A man was jogging, tripped over the dog’s tail and nearly fell onto the ground.
一個人在跑步，被狗的尾巴絆倒，幾乎跌倒了。

The dog howled in pain
狗在痛苦中嚎叫了

and started chasing after the man.
開始追逐那個人。

Ten minutes later the dog returned with something in his mouth that looked like a wallet.
十分鐘後，狗回來了，似乎咬著一個錢包。

The dog dropped the wallet onto my guitar case
狗把錢包放進我的吉他盒

as I continued to sing.
當我繼續唱歌。

I saw a dog on the street listening to my music.
我看見一隻狗在街上，傾聽我的音樂。

(1st translation by computer, 2nd translation by Lora)

Categories
Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative

Artist Gone Solo Part 3 of 3 – Tracey Thorn Of EBTG

If you are born after the year of 1979, I bet you one muffin (if you buy me the coffee) that you have heard the Todd Terry remix version of “Missing” from the band Everything But The Girl (EBTG). That song is probably one of my top 20 songs of all time (I should start to keep track of all these songs for one day I may have said it more than 20 times). To hear “Missing”, click onto the link. I bet now you start to remember towards the end of the song when the drum beat disappears and the dance floor is flooded with blinking light in a smoke filled room, you look around seeing everyone in slow step-forward motion engaging in some sort of trance state of mind including yourself … now you remember. Before you make a negative comment on the appearance of Tracey Thorn, she does have a beautiful voice and a wonderful talent. And she tends to draw lots of female fans too (from some of the profiles I have read across the web).

It is rather unfortunately that people equate “Missing” to EBTG’s style. You can’t blame the public for that. After all, “Missing” is probably the most popular song coming from the band giving them the worldwide recognition. I bought the album “Amplified Heart” because of that one song and the rest of the tracks are mainly acoustic. Back then, they were a folk and jazz group.

12 years have passed since “Missing” and Tracey Thorn – the voice of EBTG – has come out with a solo album “Out Of The Woods” with her co-writing the materials with producers from Europe to US (London, Brighton, Nottingham, York, Lisbon, Berlin, and New York). In a way, this array of different talents from different locations have added much variety to her solo album. Music-wise, it is a mix of English pop, folk, and electronica. Those who love “Missing” will rejoice listening to “Out Of The Woods”. Lyrically, it is simple and personal. I especially like the opening lyrics of “By Piccadilly Station I Sat Down And Wept”.

Wait … before you read on, what does that song title reminds you of? Quick quick, it is a game of association.

To me, that reminded me of “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept” by the famous writer “Paulo Coelho”. The beginning of the song goes something like “Do you ever wonder where love goes? Out there in the ether, I suppose. Sometimes it burns enough to leave a trace in the air. A ghost of me and you in a parallel world somewhere.”.

Tracey Thorn’s voice is hauntingly soothing and relax throughout the album and it is hard not to love all the tracks. However, having a broad team of producers may have added more variety to the album, not all the songs – to me – are of equal standard. I like some a lot more than some others. Enough of words. Let the song do the talking. “It’s All True” – a nice song with a bizarre video. If you like “It’s All True”, you may wish to try “Raise The Roof”. I personally like “A-Z”, “Falling Off A Log”, and epecially “Grand Canyon” a lot but she is not making them into singles … as yet. “Grand Canyon” is as close to “Missing” as you can get.

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Fragments of My Dreams

Fragments Of My Dreams Episode 1 – Being A Spy

I am a spy and together with my team, we infiltrate a high-rise government building that belongs to one of our neighbours. The nature of this building is not known to me. What is our neighbour’s building doing in the land of our country? I do not know. I am new to this job and most of the time I follow my supervisor. This government building must be covered in glass panels. I rarely get to see that. In fact, most of the time, we are hiding inside one room underground that our neighbouring country does not even know it exists. There are computers inside, together with all the high tech equipment. We joke with one another inside this room and we do a lot of silly things inside to pass time. As told by my supervisor, we have paid millions to have this room added during the construction of the building without letting anybody knows about it but us.

In one of our routine spying mission, we venture out of our secret room and into a large dark room to gather information. Out of extraordinary, I have seen Andrew, one of my teammates, reappears from nowhere while talking in his wireless phone. All of a sudden, my supervisor alerts my team of a potential exposure and true enough, I see a figure appears round the corner at the far end of the long corridor.

“The Keyfinder is here!” screams my supervisor. We all run along the long corridors and into our secret room. I have a quick glance at the Keyfinder and he wears a costume of red and blue. Behind him is a troop of military with guns ready to shoot us to death. A Keyfinder, from what I remember, is someone who knows every single room of the building by heart.

We barely make it in time and my supervisor activates the button to seal off the door permanently and makes it disappear for good. A huge slab of steel falls upon the closed door making it impossible to be reopened again. My supervisor screams, “Run!” and we all run for our life.

I have a nagging feeling that Andrew is the mole. I punch in the request at my high tech watch to do a call trace on Andrew’s phone just seconds before we were spotted by the Keyfinder.

As we emerge from the tunnels and corridors of darkness, we must be high up in the building. My supervisor opens the glass panels and below, I see a line that connects this building with the next. I feel the wind from outside. We walk gingerly along the wire and I try not to look down (though I am thrilled by finally able to see outdoors after ages of living inside a basement). We must be on the 50th floor. After some acrobatic moves, we arrive safely to another high-rise building just opposite from that building we used to camp for weeks.

We are safe. At least from the Keyfinder. These foreign agents cannot hurt us out of their domain. At night, inside Chinatown, I meet my supervisor and tell him all about Andrew. He tells me that it is common to have a mole in our team. And he bets Andrew gets 23-million dollars like the rest before him and he should have by now left our country for good.

This, is not fair. We have lost that room forever. What are we going to do?

Note: This is a real dream of mine. How much can you decipher?

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Diary

A Family Weekend – A Rare Occasion

Click to enlarge

Last night I could not sleep. I lied in bed for six hours with my eyes closed but I just could not sleep. Not sure if I was nervous about today’s jamming session (yes, I treat each session with utmost seriousness) or I was going to visit my sister’s boyfriend Benny aka my ex’s brother and his family. It must have been 10 years since I have seen his parents. It is strange that I had dated his sister for more than 4 years and both sides of the parents have not met one another.

Let’s rewind a bit. Yesterday, my sister brought us to her new office at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and it was my 2nd time there. 1st time I dropped off my sister for the job interview. NTU is so huge! And green … and some buildings are pretty artistic.

How time flies between the two visits. And since Lora has just gotten her first paycheck (thank God), it was time to give us a treat at Jumbo East Coast Park. My mother loves the chili crab there … and the sea view too.

Just to narrate on the photos … from left to right, up then down … my sister Lora, my wife Cynthia, and my mother just outside the building where my sister works. Then the next 3 photos were taken inside her office. Look, it is an office with a view! Not only that, it comes with a white board, a few chairs, and a sofa. And of course there is a name tag of … Senior Assistant Director outside her room. Power hor?

I am so proud of my little sister.

12pm-ish, we picked up our lead guitarist Jason. Had our lunch at our usual hawker center and time to jam (for new visitors of my site, “jamming” means our band get together and play music)! This time round, Jason did some setting for Cynthia’s bass guitar and it sounded much, much better. Full body and sounded grunge. We have also boosted up the instrumental tracks and I have taken some of Cynthia’s advice on my vocals. Overall, we did 2 runs of 9 songs and have recorded over 80 minutes of music. Cynthia has some interesting bass runs and Jason’s guitar … well, it is always divine. The final live recording is pleasant to listen to and our next step is for me to make a better transcript of my songs for Jason and Cynthia (current transcripts can be confusing at times). Snail pace to live performance but we are getting there, for sure.

Now, back to tonight’s dinner, Benny’s mother has cooked so much food (very delicious some more)! The last time I tasted her cooking was 10 years ago while I was camping at Benny’s room before I found a place to rent. Now that my sister is staying in Benny’s sister’s room (she got married), I am sure my sister is well taken care of. Benny’s parents are really nice.

What a walk on the memory lane tonight. Funny how life turns out to be. Every step we take … leads to somewhere … significant. To our oneself, and to people around us.

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Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative

Bon Jovi’s Lost Highway – Music Inspired By Nashville, Tennessee

Last evening we had a little jamming session at my home that went pretty well. Except it overran for an hour. We managed to record more than 90 minutes of live music from 8pm to 11pm. My mother who is recently in town asked me this morning if I wrote all these songs. She was pleasantly surprised and wondered why I don’t work in a music industry. I wish life is that simple. What a role reversal here. I thought parents always want their children to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen … and not to pursue a career in art.

And somehow I was not surprised to see the look in my guitarist’s face when he discovered a new Bon Jovi CD lying on the floor together with piles and piles of CDs. He casually asked if Bon Jovi still produces albums (read: this band still exists?).

“Lost Highway” is Bon Jovi’s 10th studio album and I have got 8 of them from “Slippery When Wet” onwards as well as the box set entitled “100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong” that contains four CDs packed with 38 unreleased and 12 rare tracks. I have been to one of their concerts (the tour for “These Days” album) when I was in UK, waited 12 hours before the band’s appearance, and was close enough to see the band in action.

Okay. I confess that I am a Bon Jovi fan – one of the 100,000,000.

Once in a while, God bless mankind with a rock band that is so consistent album after album. Really, I cannot tell the difference between “These Days”, “Crush”, and “Bounce” – just to pick a few. Each album comes with a bunch of killer faster songs that people all go wild in bars when cover bands play them (who wouldn’t dance and sing along with the recent hits of “It’s My Life”, “Everyday”, or “Have a Nice Day”?). And each album is never short of killer slow songs. Songs like “Always”, “Bed of Roses”, and “I’ll be There for You” bleed hearts.

“Who Says You Can’t Go Home”, a track from their ninth studio album “Have a Nice Day”, has won the Grammy Award for “Best Country Collaboration with Vocals”. Country? That’s right. Listen to the first two tracks of “Lost Highway”, one may be mistaken that Bon Jovi is going country. There is even one song featured LeAnn Rimes. Initially I thought this album is more appropriate as Richie Sambora’s (lead guitarist) solo album (he has two solo albums that have a certain country feel). After a few rounds of listening, I conclude that “Lost Highway” is still a Bon Jovi album with a certain country feel to it. Half of the album is produced by John Shanks (who produced “Have a Nice Day”) and another half by Dahn Huff. I can’t really tell which half is more “country” but two of my favourite songs “(You Want To) Make A Memory” and “We Got It Going On” are produced by Dahn Huff.

I can certainly see that Richie Sambora has put in a lot of hard work in this album. As a backing vocalist, he compliments Jon’s vocal well and as a lead guitarist, there are a fair amount of guitar solos throughout the album. Richie Sambora has been going through a tough period in his life (including a painful divorce) and according to him, he has poured everything he had into this project, every last bit of soul at his command.

Why Nashville you may ask. To Jon, Nashville is full of songwriters and musicians and he wanted to make an album right in the middle of this town of inspiration. It is of no surprise that the last song of the album is “I Love This Town”.

I am not sure how you may react to this album if you are not a hardcore Bon Jovi fan. “Lost Highway” is definitely not one of those commercial pop rock albums that can easily hook onto you. Nor it is a typical Bon Jovi album that you can instantly fall in love with. According to Cynthia, she said the single “(You Want To) Make a Memory” is enough for her to buy the album. Wish to give that song a try? Watch their live performance below. I personally find the song a bit bland. However, the element of simplicity kind of grows on me. As for the non-hardcore fans? Do sample the album thoroughly to see if this country feel is your cup of tea.