JBJ @ Volunteering Convention in San Francisco (and new song info!)

I have always felt that since Crush, Bon Jovi's lyrical content has been very tongue-in-cheek and the new lyrics in that song hold no sincerity whatsoever with me.

I am only hoping that the real quality, the musicianship of the band, shines through as this is all they can cling to at the moment IMO. There are too many songs that they have written for commercial success recently to take their supposed "deeper meaning" with anything more than a pinch of salt.

I beg to be proven wrong but, after the last four albums (five if you include TLFR), it does make it hard to remain overly optimistic. We can only wait and see though and, without a full version of any song to go by, it would be silly to write the new material off before it's even seen the light of day.

When are people going to stop acting like KTF and TD were written as anything else but the commercial albums that they are.

There is no art in the lyrics that they have churned out in their most recent efforts - that's the difference. You can tackle popular or current topics in songs in order to capitalise on public opinion but that doesn't mean songs write themselves. You can't just throw a few well-banded phrases together and expect to come up with something meaningful or sincere. Great songs require a little more thought than the likes of anything that followed TD or KTF and the lyrical extracts cited so far don't inspire much hope that they intend to deter from the 'no-brainer' choruses or hollow verses that have been penned in recent years.

The lyrics in both of those albums was on a par with the instrumental parts that accompanied them but, even though the musicianship isn't of the same calibre as it was, the lyrical content has dropped even further.

I'm not writing it off though as the music may yet be brilliant - I just don't agree with people who are seeing any depth in the lyrics we've heard so far.

i agree with him

My point is that the songs on previous records were JUST as crafted for radio consumption as the current ones. They were targeted at a different market.

First of all, Jon isn't helping the common guy afford housing, he's attempting to help the poor. What he doesn't understand or more likely doesn't care to understand is that the "common guys" that you speak of are the people who attend Bon Jovi shows. The "common guys" are the people he has no problem charging ridiculous amounts of money to night in and night out, city after city.

People bother because at the end of the day, they are/were fans of the band's material. Bon Jovi is a business and every business should cater to it's customers/fans and their albums are products they are selling. True this pop shit is gaining them fans, but they seem to be losing more at the moment than they are gaining. Don't argue that because the half empty stadiums in Europe are proof. If you are running a business, would you want to loose or alienate your long-time buyers (who in Bon Jovi's case have seen them tour after tour sometimes in multiple cities) for the new or casual fan who may only seem here and there? I know I would choose the loyal, longtime customer over the unproven customer who may not buy from me again.

You know Erik, it's similar to the thread you started called "To What Extent" and posted this:
I'm going to use this as an example because you are familiar with this situation and discount the fact that there may be extenuating circumstances that would change the thinking ie. you living in a highly Jewish populated area or the restaurant not having the means to serve both non kosher and kosher, etc.

If this is your favorite restaurant, I'm going to assume you have eaten there multiple times, correct? You also seem to enjoy eating bacon and ham so by choosing to appeal to only their Jewish customers, they are technically alienating you, their longtime customer who enjoys eating there on multiple occassions. Why not offer both kosher and non kosher and please both customers?

So theoretically, if Bon Jovi were to focus on making a good album, they would have a much greater chance of appealing to the people "complaining and bitching" on here as well as the people who enjoyed the last 4-5 records.

So true, there maybe more casual fans but more times than not, if you put a good album out, they will most likely buy it come to the shows too.

Yes but that song takes a shot at rich people who believe their wealth entitles them to look down on others. Aerosmith were indeed rich when they released this song, but they come from humble beginnings and can't stand the condescending attitude of some rich people. So it's not really stupid at all.

Perhaps so, however, there's absolutely no way that as much heart and soul went into crafting any sort of meaning lyrically into post-2000 material as that released in the 90s. That was my point.

There are no hidden messages or underlying inferences in the dumbed down efforts that followed TD and I don't see any attempt to change that...... so far.

I have to disagree in part here ... if you listen to the These Days demos especially, they really seem to be about saying something ... Flesh And Bone and Lonely At The Top for example aren't really catering to any crowd, they really do seem to be just musical expression for its own sake. Although I do doubt that everything since 2000 has been completely cold and calculated to make Jon the most amount of money .... for example, I do believe that Lost Highway was something that they wanted to do even before HAND was released.

Of course, I'm not 100% sure what a happily married multimillionaire rock star with four children is going to write about that won't require him to write from someone else's point of view (I'd assume that one of the most personal songs Jon has written this decade is I Got The Girl, and we all know how liked that is) so I'll reserve judgement on this for now.