Just because an album is #1, doesn't mean it's good...

They can if they want to.

There was a lot of "Lost Highway" floating around the internet long before it was released. And it wasn't hard to find.

And "Lost Highway" charted #1 for a number of weeks in Canada. If word of mouth wasn't positive, it wouldn't stayed so high on the charts for as long as it did.

That's just one Country. The story has been VERY different elsewhere.

yes it's a fact that HAND(the song and the smirk) made me a bj convert..new to the BJ legion...but when i bought the album and listened to it,I had to skip some tracks...later I bought their 80's, 90's and 00's album I had some songs from the albums that I had to skip it and to let those songs grow on me...but with LH, i thought the album was going to be bad coz' it's a "country record"coz' i hate country but none the less I bought the album and gave it a go(to me it's a BJ record not really that country..IMHO) I listened to it and every song just blew me away...so yeah..this album, Lost Highway, is a good, great album...In my most honest opinion!

You're right. But we also don't know what the expectations were when it was released. Did they expect it to do well outside of North America? Who knows. Did the record exec's say it would be suicide in Europe to release a "Nashville influenced" album? Who knows. Did they care?

The spin doctors would have had an explanation no matter what happened. Does well - "We were pleasantly surprised by the acceptance this album had worldwide". Tanks - This was something Bon Jovi did as a one off experiment - there were no expectations outside of the country-listening audience"

We'll just never know.

It'll be interesting to see what the next album brings, that's for sure!