Do Bon Jovi have to please too many different fans?

i agree, but for me "This aint alove song" is too much of a song, is magic, epic,and very special, was the first song i loved by Bon Jovi BAND after "Bed of roses" and the video is amazing too, i like the way it makes you think what was really happening
or what it was about..so everyone can have its own idea...damn i love the way Jon Smiles when hes with arms crossed in a part of the video i think is while he sings "i guess that i was blind"(i dont mean i like him,im not gay), also the way Richie is dressed and with those sunglasses, how he plays the solo its great , also the location, still i dont know why the band didnt liked he video

I agree that the band was more passionate about their music in the 80s and 90s. Especially during the 80s. Listen to the bootlegs or interviews - they want to prove themselves. Their music has heart and soul because it's absolutely what they wanted to do. Even in the 90s they were proud of their new material, and when they played it live they wanted to deliver. Songs were not or rarely crafted, it was a band playing what they wanted to play. You can't blame them for being commercial. Sex sells, haha. All of their classic ballads had a life of their own and were not copies of a previous success (though, releasing TAALS as a first single absolutely made sense, if it was about it being a great song it could have been 4th single, like the title track was), same goes for the rockers (compare "Keep The Faith" with "Hey God" for instance).
If they tried different sounds they were there for it, take "Let's Make It Baby" or "Save A Prayer". They were just not brave enough to put these songs on their albums. They wanted to sell albums and therefore maybe thought have to make albums that sound like "them". But as I pointed out earlier, I love this band also because they understood to give each song an individual character, may it be ballad or rocker or whatever.

In the 2000s things changed a bit. "Thank You For Loving Me" sure feels crafted to please the ballad market and was therefore put on the 3rd spot on the record. But in this case, I would defend it as being a good song. While AALY (though I quite like it) hardly qualifies as a standout BJ ballad. It has "being crafted for wer teenage dreams" all over it. And therefore fails. It just wasn't a true statement of the band. Otherwise it would have gotten so much more room in the setlists. It has been played only once. That tells a story. And putting such songs on a record is what I blame the band (or any band) for.

What I don't understand is, why nowadays they forget about all those great songs they wrote in the past and play "This Ain't A Love Song" or "Believe" just once on a whole tour due to fan requests. Still they are really proud about their new material, see how they talked about the "Lost Highway"-album. Or the fact that they played it live as one piece and released it on DVD. It appears they just don't have or want to prove themselves as they did when they were younger. They became sort of lazy. They surely still enjoy making music, but in some way the are fed. So they tend to repeat themselves instead of going different ways and putting different spices to their albums. To come back to the thread, they always pleased many different fans, that's one big part if their success I think. Just overall their music was more passionate in the past.

Aloha !

Eh? Jon obviously wanted to take a more commercial driven direction after the more artistic approaches of KTF and TD didn't work in America. Had TD been as big in America as it was in Europe no way we would've had an album that sounds like Crush. There's a reason why they chose Luke Ebbin as their producer instead of a producer who actually had any experience with rock bands.

You tell me what song from These Days you think would've been the best first single off the album. If you honestly believe Hey God would've been the better first choice you're very wrong.

Both Always and TAALS are ballads, but This Ain't A Love Song did not become a hit because of Always nor it was chosen because Always had been so big. Keep in mind that the song was written before Always had topped the charts. It just isn't the same as Everyday that would, according to Jon, become a hit because It's My Life had been a hit. It just isn't the same.

And DevilsSon; Obviously This Ain't A Love Song was played a lot on the Cross Road tour. It was the big hit while the band was touring Europe. That doesn't really have anything to do with the song itself. They dropped it on many dates on the 1996 These Days tour while Hey God and Something For The Pain remained in the set. I don't really think the band loves the song as much as you think they do. And Jon was actually very, very proud of Thank You For Loving Me and was very disappointed the song did not become the big hit he hoped it would be.

All About Lovin' You was a song written for LeAnn Rhimes though the band and especially Obie (there he is again) denied it completely. However, before Bounce was released track details for AALY leaked and I think she had even made comments about the song, though I'm not sure about that. However, she didn't want the song and one of the co-writers brought it to the table during the Bounce writing sessions. It's probably the reason why the band refused to play it live. So sure, they're credited as the writers, but the song was mostly finished when the band recorded it. They'll probably never admit this though.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

well is no secret that Jon´s voice is not the same of 1992 thats why i think they have to change , also as you said they dont have to prove anything, just look at the albums, they are all very different , of course they still enjoy making music, but its not that they will repeat the same formula again and again
listen to "Dirty little secret" great song, but it fails in sort of vocal

Was it? For sure?

Aloha !

Yes. Always topped the charts in September 1994 while the band played a Christmas show on December 14, 1994, which included This Is Not A Love Song, the working title for This Ain't A Love Song. So writing and recording for These Days had already started by the time Always was topping the charts and the song had already been written.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I have that bootleg too. But there is still a 2 month gap. But actually I think you're right, and either way I don't disagree with you. Always and TAALS are two very different songs.

1. I never said anything about Hey God, or that there was a better first single choice, though it was the first time ever that the band didn't release a rocker as the first single, and was the only time until LH that the band hadn't released a song with rock-like elements as the first single of off a record.

2. If you honestly believe that there was no commercial intent when writing Faith or TD you're fooling yourself.

3. That's still a two month gap. Not to mention that having a song written, and choosing it to be the first single are quite different.

4. It's not the same as Everyday and IML, in Everyday was written as a blatant IML clone. I don't think TAALS was written as an Always clone. It's an incredibly different song. But it's still a song that to a casual radio listener is the same type of ballad that Bon Jovi had released up to that point in the 90's.

5. The basic point of this is, I don't think TAALS was crafted the way TYFLM or AALY were, and it's INSANELY BETTER than those songs. But I just think that the success of Always, and also BOR influenced it's choice of first single off of the TD record.

I'm not saying it necessarily would have been a bigger hit than TAALS had it been released first, but I think Something For The Pain is the obvious first single off These Days