Bounce

Because I am bored, tired, and haven't made any particularly pointless topics in quite a while...

Since we are *hopefully* coming close to the end of the era that features Bounce as the most recent BJ album, I thought I'd just try one more thing... see, its clear that a lot of people thought that some of the best songs from the sessions weren't actually on the album, and were instead released as B-sides.

So, here's the deal. Make a 12 song (and up to 2 bonus tracks if you like) album that you think Bounce should have been. Change it's name if you want. Say what singles you think should have been released from it. Basically, redo the entire era your way. And then, when you've created your album tracklist, rate it against the other BJ albums (e.g. would it be your favourite BJ album? Third fave? The worst?)

Songs you can use are:

*The 12 songs that are on the actual album
*Demo versions of songs that are on the album (e.g. One/Undivided, Joey)
*Acoustic versions of songs from the album (e.g. Everyday, All About Lovin' You)
*The TLFR version of Everyday
*Remixes of the songs on the album (e.g. Everyday 'rock' mix, Misunderstood single mix)
*Demos from the album sessions (Another Reason To Believe, Standing, Lucky, No Regrets, Postcards From The Wasteland, We Can Dance, Breathe, Alive)

Just give it a go if you feel like it

Here we go then. I think Bounce was quite a good name, or you could call it Standing, or Undivded. Makes no difference because they're all optimistic titles even if they are only one word titles:

1. Standing
2. Undivided (* First Single*)
3. Alive (*Third Single*)
4. Open All Night
5. Everyday
6. Right Side of Wrong
7. Joey (Acoustic Live - From TLFR)
8. The Distance (Acoustic Live - From TLFR)
9. Hook Me Up
10. Misunderstood
11. Love Me Back To Life
12. Bounce (*Second Single*)


Those are the best tracks of the era as far as I know. I think Undivided would have done well as a single, and same with Bounce, but that was probably not released because of the "ffffBBBOUNCE!!". I dropped Misunderstood as a single, even though it did well, because I think the riff and chrous of Alive just shouts out "BUY ME!"

The ballads are practically gone because they are too lovey dovey and I've replaced those with the rockers Standing and Alive. I left Open All Night on because that is probably the best ballad on the album, even though it ain't great, but I don't really like any of the other Demos. I've got the live acoustics of Joey and The Distance because they are great, although you could argue that you can't put live tracks on a studio album.

Even with my modified Bounce it's still nowhere near my fave album. That would be Keep The Faith, followed by NJ, TD and SWW. Those albums are so much better muscially and lyrically than Bounce. The only album that ranks below Bounce is 7800 in my opinion. Bon Jovi took a wrong turn with Bounce I think, and with the new album they need to let Westlife do the lovey dovey snuggle cakes ballads and rock like Bon Jovi! Come on boys you know you've still got it!!!


Thats me done. Tired as hell now, so I'm off to bed! See ya!

OK, here I go.

First off, the title for mine would still be Bounce.

The track listing would be as follows.
1. Undivided
2. Breathe
3. Everyday (album version)
4. The Distance
5. Misunderstood (album version)
6. Hook Me Up
7. Right Side of Wrong
8. Alive
9. You Had Me from Hello
10. Love Me Back to Life
11. No Regrets
12. Bounce

The bonus tracks would be
13. Postcards from the Wasteleand
14. Another Reason to Believe

The singles would be Bounce, Everyday, and The Distance. Alive would also be a single, but not a wolrdwide one.

This would probably be my favorite album because Bounce is already my favorite album. Going through the track listing, I didn't change too much because I like the album in it's original state so much anyway. I just got rid of some of the slower ballads and replaced them with songs I liked more. I put Bounce as the ending track because I think it would have made a stronger ending for the album than Open All Night did. I also thought that Another Reason to Believe would make a strong ending, but I don't like it as much as Bounce so I made it a bonus track that would be available in select countries.

Aloha !

It's hard to make it a 12 track album, because there simply aren't enough songs that are worth it being on the album. Because the album contains so many slow songs, the b-sides that are rockers are easily overrated, just because they've got many guitars and are a lot harder. However, those songs just aren't good and don't live up to the rockers on Bounce itself.

Standing is just a rip off from Lenny Kravitz' Dig In. Just listen to that song and then listen to Standing. It's just a rip off. Another Reason To Believe is nice, but too many 9/11 references which makes it outdated now. Plus, a chorus that goes "Say haleluja baby, rise up" sounds just silly. It's a shame that it's got those cons, because the melody is pretty nice, and it contains the only real guitar solo from the entire Bounce era. Alive is one of those overrated rockers as well, it sounds forced. It sounds a lot like "Let's make a real loud guitar song" but it doesn't sound like that at all.

If it's up to me, Bounce would never have been released. Too many directions but unsure of which one they should take, so they tried to put as many in one album as possible. That just doesn't work. Only the rock songs on the album are worth mentioning, the rest is just shite.

About the singles: Undivided is a great song, but again, because of the 9/11 lyrics it will probably never be played again. Plus it would only have been a great one off single in the States after the terror attacks. Something for charity. It's a good song for that. But if Bon Jovi would've released such a song as a single in the rest of the world, not many people would've taken them serious. It would be seen as 9/11 overkill, which happened with the songs that were released at that time for 9/11.

Bounce would've been a great single. That's all. Hook Me Up is a great track, but should be the album gem. Those are the only rock songs that are great, however, Bounce can not be played live because of all the effects. For the rest, there are no great tracks on it, though many people like the Creed sound alike song The Distance as well. But only Bounce would've worked. No other song.

Bounce is just a failed project, no matter how many times you look at it, or from what different angle. They've recorded about 30 songs, and not even 12 songs are good enough. That makes me wonder how many good songs we'll get on the next album. If they keep on writing songs like that, only the silly teenyboppers will be buying their albums.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I still class Bounce as one of my favourite albums, but there are still tracks which I dont neccessarily skip whilst listening to the album, but I still think could of been replaced with better tracks from that era. I took out Joey, Misunderstood, Right Side Of Wrong and Love Me Back To Life - these are not really worthy of being on the album, when there are so many other positive or rocky tracks that could/should have been included. I would like to know, why the band insist on putting so many soppy ballads on their albums these days. The core of BJ fans prefer rock tracks, and like earlier albums, that is what we used to get. Now we have to put up with crappy poorly written ballads that are nothing more than fillers in my opinion. My 'ideal' Bounce Album would look like the following:

Bounce

1. Undivided
2. Everyday
3. The Distance
4. Standing
5. Alive
6. All About Loving You
7. Hook Me Up
8. Another Reason To Believe
9. Love Me Back To Life
10. You Had Me From Hello
11. Bounce
12. Postcards From The Wasteland

bounce was reasonable, though Right side of wrong and Joey both dont feel like BJ songs, not exactly sure where Jon's songwriting is going these days... either LOAP/IML rewrites or slushy blue collar ballads..

The only thing I would have changed on the bounce album are You had me from hello and open all night and replaced them with Standing, and alive.
The rest I'm happy with.