Quote:
Originally Posted by steel_horse75
Hand was such a disappointment.
It’s probably my most unlistened to album with Richie in the band.
There’s just nothing about it. So bland.
I love the title track, last man standing, dirty little secret and don’t mind unbreakable. The rest never get played.
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I was going to give my opinion on the album but I pretty much summed it up for myself here;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave 1986
I used to love this album back in 2005. At the time I thought it was a huge return to form. By that I meant in the sense that it seemed more "pure" compared to Crush and Bounce, more actual guitar solos and just felt that it "rocked" more. Now it pretty much bores me. I played it about 6 months ago and it does nothing for me.
The title track absolutely floored me on initial release. It had the now-typical "It's My Life" symptoms but it was much less processed than that and "Everyday" and had more of a classic-rock vibe to it. Back then I thought "THIS is the kind of lead single I wanna hear from this band today!" Now? Somehow now it's lost it's impact, and the shoddy compressed production does it no favours either.
I can see why the album often gets cited as their best post-2000 release as I suppose it is probably more consistent than the others, it's loaded with more rock songs and tones down on the ballads at bit.
Plus I thought the red smirk gimmic was ace!
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It's funny how I used to think it was a strong solid album back in 2005 and now it feels dated and underwhelming.
Bounce on the other hand (no pun intended) still holds up for me and is still just as engaging, even though it probably has more flaws than
Have a Nice Day. I loved the title track and "I Want To Be Loved" the most back then, and "Dirty Little Secret" was a good bonus track as well.
I still think the final album over all is better than the "original" 2004 version. It would probably help if I actually listen to the whole original album but I think some of the additional songs included for the final album helped beef it up a bit. I think a hybrid of the 2004 and 2005 version would have worked best, like if the original versions of "Have a Nice Day", "I Want To Be Loved" and "Bells of Freedom" were used instead of dumbing down and broadening the lyrics for the final version.