Jon Bellion - Father Figure (Album)
The tethering balance of music and family. For a music artist, this is commonly known to create an intervening struggle between your passion and your foundation of life. Especially for an artist like Jon Bellion who creates and aims for nothing less than sentiment and connection in his music for the ears of theworld. While music has always been at the forefront, family has always meant more for Jon. 6 years away from the craft youlove is a long time, but it’s also incomparable to the blessings, unity, safety, love and support one can gain from a family and home.
On his 3rd studio album, Jon Bellion isn’t leading and driving a full-on return but instead highlighting the priorities of a family man seeking to create a realistic and healthy format of doing what he loves, all the while keeping a firm and close grip to the people he loves most. Jon Bellion’s “Father Figure” album consists of laying out his views on such a lifestyle and placing focus on the endless importance of family, being present, showing empathy and how much that all means to him.
The opening track, “Horoscope” embodies such sentiment in relaying Jon’s family above-everything perspective. “Horoscope” is a straightforward avowal of true-hearted loyalty in a song that hears Jon cement his commitment to his wife and family. In his continuous ways of impassioned writing inspired by his wife, Bellion’s reference to the song title is a significant representation of the natural, deep-rooted and telepathic like connection they have one with another.
The theme of family on this album is beautifully referenced as the qualities that Jon values are intertwined in a way that not only brings forth his deep-rooted love but also a variety of different sounds and influences of genres that are well paced and carefully placed on the album. The albums foundation of family stands on the pillars of standards and precedence’s from the Long Island natives’ merits. The unmatched support from a wife, the eternal love for your children, and the timeless admiration for your parents. Wash, a track I think is not only flawless musically, but also in portraying the space where Jon is in life and creatively as an artist. The song literately describes the affection, praise and respect he has for his wife and fills the runtime with layers of unorthodox deliveries and harmonizing vocals above the tight percussion and lively strings.
The songwriter’s tendency to hit a switch of pace is never absent as Jon facilely floats on the pacific yet stoutly Italia Breeze that elucidates Jon’s Italian heritage and his admiration for it in pockets throughout the solemn openness and opposing viewpoints he has on certain focuses of the current world.
Why, heavy, emotional and personal pairs up an unconventional duo of Jon Bellion and Luke Combs and washes away any questions of them being a viable pairing by the end of the track. Bellion’s and Comb’s vocal proficiency combine for a tugging and earnest explanation of the love for their children. Both verses from the respective artists bring through the profound reality of bringing children into this unforgiving world and the unwavering protective shield you instantly create for them the day they are born. Reminding us love can be the most freeing and beautiful feeling in this world but also the most vulnerable and heartbreaking.
As the title track of the album, “Father Figure”, Jon Bellion gratefully uses every ounce of love he has for his children to sound off on how he vows to honor and provide for his kids no matter what the cost. Jon ties in his own gratitude and wisdom he has received from his dad and praises how great he will be for his own if he can at least be half the man his father is. There is also a double meaning in this song given the spiritual faith the songwriter has, that can also be paralleled to Jon’s faith of the lord to be best father he can be. The emotion and vivid writing on this track compare his love of his children opposed to a father who is inattentive, with unapologetic verbal swings enough to metaphorically pierce through those that are guilty of being absentee fathers.
Jon’s time away from music could be depicted as a moment in time where an artist could have been creatively lost from his music artistry, but in reality, while he was disconnected from the music artist within, Jon, the person was more so connected and rooted to his family with marriage and the birth of his children. Father instinct was born and for Jon nothing else mattered. Not even the art he loved to create. But natural craft can’t be dismissed, especially in the presence and support of a devoted wife. Undoubtedly a critical catalyst and motivator for his return but more so, the unwavering foundation and integral heartbeat of his family. Father Figure erases the hiatus of an accomplished producer and songwriter with its core family values and quickly reminds us of the talent that stems from personal and emotionally stirring music that can come from a genuine and kindred spirit.