You do have a point, but I think if you take These Days and DA out of the picture, even Keep the faith has some below-par/light-poppy lyrics and the like on there, whilst also having classics like Dry County and Bed Of Roses.

Sure Crush, Bounce etc have some shockers on there, but the likes of Just Older, The Distance, Right side of Wrong, Last Man Standing, Novacaine etc all have good lyrics.

Yes, they do have that updated post-2000 sound and yes you could argue that Jon/The Band adopted this to stay relevant, but it could also have just been a natural progression for them to take in a changing business.
But I am sure, that if their comeback single had been something like Born to be my baby, then obviously they would have not had the success that they still do have - a real reason why Bon Jovi are still on top of the business and selling stadiums out and Def leppard et al are not. [For the record I love Def Leppard]

Once you get over the obligatory 1st single of the post-2000 albums, and the odd other few standard album tracks, I still find some very decent material on these albums - lyrically and musically.

Saying all that though of course, nothing touches These Days still.


andi