BON JOVI: 2020 (Virgin EMI)
Verdict: Heartfelt and topical
MELANIE C: Melanie C (Red Girl)
Verdict: Sporty Spice’s kitchen disco
Rating: 
Before his plans were thrown into disarray by lockdown, this summer had been shaping up nicely for Jon Bon Jovi.
The lead singer of the band bearing his surname had spent a year working on a new album, 2020, that he saw as a heartfelt snapshot of an America at odds with itself.
Coronavirus put paid to the record’s intended release in May and led to the cancellation of a tour.
Before his plans were thrown into disarray by lockdown, this summer had been shaping up nicely for Jon Bon Jovi
It also had repercussions closer to home, with the New Jersey rocker’s son Jacob, 18, suffering mild symptoms and two bandmates — keyboardist David Bryan and percussionist Everett Bradley — more seriously affected.
‘The virus was all around us,’ says Jon, 58, chatting via Zoom from his Manhattan apartment.
‘We were in the bullseye in New York and New Jersey, and I lost friends and neighbours. A dear friend of mine lost his mum.
‘The guy that sold me this apartment beat cancer but lost his life to Covid-19.’
With time unexpectedly on his hands, the rock star put in dish-washing shifts at one of his three New Jersey community restaurants and helped to set up an emergency food bank.
He also began tweaking the 2020 album, adding new tracks to take account of the evolving events in a tumultuous year.
‘My wife, Dorothea, took a photo of me in our Soul Kitchen restaurant, so we could spread the word to those in need via social media,’ he continues.
‘We captioned it: ‘If you can’t do what you do . . . do what you can!’ The next day, I realised that those words sounded like a big old Bon Jovi chorus . . . so I wrote the song.’
Do What You Can, a country-pop rabble-rouser with a cracking chorus, is one of two last-minute additions to an album that’s topical and thought-provoking without being preachy or overbearing.
It’s an album that rubber-stamps his move away from riff-heavy anthems towards something closer to Bruce Springsteen’s heartland rock (pictured together)
The other new track, American Reckoning, is a powerful acoustic number about the police killing of George Floyd in May.
Rock devotees raised on Bon Jovi’s third LP, Slippery When Wet — a 1986 classic that contained the air-punching crowd-pleasers Livin’ On A Prayer and You Give Love A Bad Name — may be taken aback by the musical scope of 2020.
With the falsetto catch in Jon’s voice having given way to huskier tones, it’s an album that rubber-stamps his move away from riff-heavy anthems towards something closer to Bruce Springsteen’s heartland rock and the atmospherics of U2.
Limitless is an uplifting opening track, driven by Tico Torres’s drums. Beautiful Drug is a punchy, Jersey Shore rocker.
But there are surprises in Story Of Love (a celebration of family values with an epic finale), the piano-led Let It Rain (a call for an end to polarised politics) and the swampy southern soul of Brothers In Arms.
There’s poignancy, too, in Unbroken, which spotlights the plight of military veterans suffering from PTSD, and Lower The Flag.
Written in the wake of mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso on the same weekend in August 2019, the latter is an emotional piece about the human cost of gun crime.
‘I wanted 2020 to be a well-rounded record, not just a socially conscious one,’ says Jon. ‘It’s not just rock songs.
‘In 1986, I was 24 and living the dream of being out on the road. Bon Jovi’s a different band now. I’m an older guy with four children and different priorities.’
He is also a guy who can call on two seasoned quality controllers.
Before today’s release of 2020, he played the record to Bruce Springsteen, whose own new album Letter To You is out in three weeks, and Paul McCartney — and was hugely encouraged by their reaction.
‘Bruce came over to my house and we sat down and listened to 2020 and Letter To You. We’re both from New Jersey and have known each other long enough not to pull any punches. But he applauded 2020 . . . and his album’s great.
‘It was the same when I played it for Paul, just the two of us in a room. I hadn’t finished recording Lower The Flag, so I picked up a guitar and played it in person.
‘Singing a new song live in front of a Beatle took some courage.’
The Boss and Macca won’t be the only ones applauding.
Having reunited with Emma, Geri and Mel B for last year’s money-spinning Spice World 2019 tour, Sporty Spice resumes her solo career on an album of pulsating dance music.
A confessional edge surfaces occasionally, but this one is aimed squarely at the kitchen disco.
Having reunited with Emma, Geri and Mel B for last year’s money-spinning Spice World 2019 tour, Sporty Spice (pictured) resumes her solo career on an album of pulsating dance music
Melanie C was always the strongest singer in the Spice Girls, and her range and maturity are clear on Who I Am, a song about self-acceptance, and the lovelorn electronic ballad End Of Everything.
She has been open about her struggles with depression and addresses her demons on Overload, Blame It On Me and the darker Nowhere To Run, about an abusive relationship.
She collaborates with UK rapper Nadia Rose on reggae detour Fearless, but never strays too far from the dancefloor on a brisk, 35-minute return completed remotely during lockdown.
‘Lost in the music, we’re dancing like no one’s here,’ she sings on In And Out Of Love, chiming perfectly with the mood of the times.
IT’S JENNY FROM THE LOCKDOWN
Jennifer Lopez returns this week with two new singles, both of them with Colombian male singer Maluma.
Sung in Spanish, the duet Pa Ti is driven by real drums and sparkling Latin guitars, while Lonely is a stripped-down electronic ballad in English and Spanish.
Both songs feature in the romantic comedy Marry Me, which stars J-Lo (right) and Maluma and is due to be released in February.
Jennifer Lopez (pictured) returns this week with two new singles, both of them with Colombian male singer Maluma
Gary Barlow has also taken the Latin route on his new solo single Elita, collaborating with another Colombian star, Sebastián Yatra, and Canadian crooner Michael Bublé on a swaying pop number.
Kylie Minogue is back, too, previewing next month’s Disco album with new track Magic — all wispy vocals and steel drums — while Paloma Faith returns with Better Than This, a melodramatic ballad in the style of her 2014 hit Only Love Can Hurt Like This.
And Mick Fleetwood has re-recorded the 1995 Fleetwood Mac album track These Strange Times.
Backed by haunting strings, the nine-minute poem is read in a booming voice by the drummer with vocal assistance from country singer (and former Fleetwood Mac member) Bekka Bramlett.
The odyssey is also a tribute to Peter Green, the former Fleetwood Mac guitarist who died in July aged 73.
It opens with a reference to Green’s Man Of The World and ends with an excerpt from the classic instrumental track Albatross.