CRUSH vs BOUNCE

I don't think the overall feel of the album is consistent. The first 3 songs alone are quite different, then you have songs like Guitar Lies Bleeding, Damned different feel again, a sparse ballad in it's hard, Hearts Breaking Even changes things up again. I would say New Jersey is a cohesive album in overall feel. But again I only care if the songs themselves are good not if it's cohesive.

So two people think it's cohesive and two people don't as I don't think it's cohesive. The last 3 songs alone are all over the place on the standard release.

I might not even get the debate then. It's not cohesive because it ends with a ballad, an uptempo and a rockier song? I don't think that's "all over the place", that's an album that's not serving up the same style of song 12 times in a row. I think you can be cohesive without copy and pasting the same feel over and over.

I think it would have worked perfectly, as it would've woke my up after She's A Mystery.

But you were just saying the album lacks cohesion, but if you put on the most rock song from the Crush sessions, it would have worked alongside songs that sound so little like it?

To me it's a weird ballad, a weird up tempo song, and then a traditional rock song.

As far as debate, I've never really given the cohesiveness of an album much thought until this thread, but it doesn't seem like there is any kind of consensus on what criteria to use. I think New Jersey is cohesive and These Days is not.

oh Neurotica wouldn't make Crush cohesive it would just improve the album overall imo. Neurotica would be perfect in the sense to wake me up after She's A Mystery.

I think everybody can be equally right and wrong, as we didn't set up any objective criteria firsthand. I myself when talking about cohesion probably did mix together flow of songs, style consistency, production homogeneity and production quality (adding even the mixing and mastering quality as subparts of production).

So, to try be more specific, (IMO ofc) Crush has considerable style consistency (bubblegum pop rock of early 00's), unlike Bounce (strict dichotomy). But, Crush also has very mixed up flow of songs and production heterogeneity (e.g. IML is mixed in loudness war, and especially Just Older, I need to lower volume with that, even though I like the song very much. On the other hand, TYFLM is so quiet it's astonishing, the beginning you don't even hear in the same volume versus other singles). Though, both Bounce and Crush seems to have solid production quality, one with bubblegum style chosen, another with its dichotomy that makes album perhaps disjointed (or as someone said, 2 bands playing on the album). Generally, there is a good sense of what is played and by whom (trying to find negatives here, perhaps muddled Sambora parts of solo in Next 100 Years).

Going back in time, SWW and New Jersey are worldclass production for their time and age. My personal favourite due to production quality (especially heard on songs such as KTF, perhaps best mixed song of Jovi ever) is KTF album (but I do not like the flow of songs at all). Obvious explanation is the touch of Bob Rock. Then, These Days is also masterful example of whole production and mix sitting right where it should be. I guess those are still times when analogue was mostly prominent, even though pro tools was already used on TD.

Then, skipping to HAND, that is probably the most production and song style consistent album band ever produced (but also consistently not very high song quality). In some cases, chosen style is very good (HAND song), in some cases it hinders songs that need to breath more (I am or Novocaine). But overall, as a nod to pop punk of mid-2000's, its' interesting in its own' right, even though completely embroiled in loudness wars of that time.

Lost Highway I see as two different parts of the same album, with the part that wasn't mixed by Shanks as more appropriate for the style of songs. The Circle at first I thought I really liked production, but with hindsight, it's very very cold and reverb driven all around.

After WAN, I decided that I'm done with Shanks, as here it's obvious there is no style, no direction, just poor choices in both bird-eye production overall, as well as mixing some parts and low key not doing vocals, guitars, drums justice. WAN is probably low-point of Shanks, as he did a little bit better of House album, and much much better on 2020 where songs finally breathe. But 2020 is also released when Shanks old style of loudness production is completely out of touch generally. I could and love to go in more detail about production, but I won't proceed to hijack this thread further so I'll stop here

EDIT: Perhaps my view of disjointed Crush album is influenced by my shock when I first heard Mystery Train, Save the World and She's a Mystery. After knowing the band catalogue, and then new major global single IML, and then you hear this part of the album and you just go ?????? It's not due to pop, or sellout or whatever, but sheer lack of inspiration, B-track lack of quality and cheese unfitting for a comeback album. And this only made more sense later, when series of filler tracks was released with every album

I never got the love for Neurotica. The verses sound like an Aerosmith reject ("that's too much like Young Lust, guys!"), the chorus is... okay? It's certainly not a lost classic. Stay IMO is a really good song, but they didn't even bother to do a full band (re)recording, so I guess they felt differently about that one.

What I mean by calling Crush cohesive is that it follows a pop rock vibe close to the whole way through. It’s not a BJ record like the ones we had before, but you can see modern pop rock traces and the similarities between Two Story Town, Just Older, Mystery Train, She’s A Mystery, Next 100 Years, Say It Isn’t So, Save The World, Captain Crash and I Got A Girl. They’re different in style (slow, mid tempo, high etc.), but the guitar feel in all plays along the same lines imo, same with the drums. Vocal delivery too. That’s what I mean when I said mixing Crush and Bounce wouldn’t sound cohesive as they have different guitar feel, vocal delivery and would have 0 synergy like Cursh has to an extend. Just because it’s an album filled with hard rock doesn’t mean it would fit, if you understand what I’m trying to say.
But that thought may vary from person to person, idk