I think what has to be taken into consideration is the fact that Jon and Richie, and most songwriters in general don't want to keep writing the same songs. For example, they finish These Days, they start writing again, they won't want to make an album that is exactly the same. They want to develop as songwriters, and they will look to modern influences, what's in the chart, what's popular, and they will experiment, some songs will have great lyrics, some a bit shoddy. It's a good thing, as much as I love These Days, I wouldn't want their next five albums to be These Days Part 2-6. The downside to that being it's gonna be hard for the next album to match one of such a high standard.