Lost Highway - A Year On

whole lot of leaving

Of course! Stupid me.

I second that.
The album is okay...
But definitely nowhere near their best.

The 2nd half of the album is very poor. Sometimes I like Till we aint Strangers, but One Step closer, Seat next to you, Last Night etc are so so SO bland.
Its a shame, It gets off to such a great start and to be honest, Lost Highway, MAM, WLOL and AOD are easily some of their best ever post-2000 work and WGIGO and Summertime are good craic live i guess, guilty pleasures up there with Bad Mx and Sleep.


andi

In this album I don't only like One Step Closer and Seat next to you.
The rest of the songs, are quite enjoyable.

I actually love the 2nd half of the record. EB and SNTU are two of my favorites.

deb

Overall I think it's a very good album, better than Crush and Bounce, but not quite up to the glory of HAND. I agree that after track 6, Lost Highway does falter somewhat, but the quality slip isn't that bad, and I would argue that Till we ain't strangers anymore and The Last Night hold up pretty well. I still listen to the album all the way through and enjoy it.

The title track is a belter of a tune, Any Other Day stands up with the band's finest and Make A Memory is the best ballad this decade. It completely destroys the likes of Thank you for loving me, All about loving you and Welcome to wherever you are. I would argue that the lyrics on Make A Memory put it next to 90's Jovi in terms of quality.

Right ....

Well, like all the post 2000 BJ albums, it's got pretty much equal things about it that are good and bad. And like the others, it's got its own distinctive identity (Crush being the poppy one, Bounce the experimental one, HAND the modern rock one, and LH the country one), so it's near impossible for me to pick which one's are better than others (I've never been very good at that anyway)

Good things about LH:

1. The lyrics are very personal, and quite heartfelt because of that. You feel genuinely that this album could not have been created by this band anytime other than late 2006 / early 2007, which is a good thing IMO

2. It's more mature and grown up than HAND. I know I'm not the first one to do so, but I would call it the 00s These Days to HAND's 00s Keep The Faith. It's got some strong songwriting, tempered slightly by the mostly unecessary country elements

3. Guitar solos, finally back after a long absence

4. Reasonably good flow, although see 2. under "Not so good things" below

5. Some songs up there with the best of the 00s - Make A Memory, Whole Lot Of Leaving, Any Other Day

6. All the songs on it are at least pretty good, there's nothing really horrible

7. The 3 bonus tracks are great

Not so good things about LH:

1. The country thing. In theory I don't mind it, but it's just the fact that the result is that there's bits in almost every song that sound almost exactly the same ... mainly in the intro, and whenever that intro is repeated. That's why I have trouble liking LH the song (and the fact that it's as cliched as all hell), that main guitar riff (if you can even call it that) drives me mad. And to cap it all off, they all sound exactly the same as the main riff in Who Says

2. The first half is much better than the second. Which of course makes the album drag a bit

3. For all the talk that it was gonna be country, it's really not experimental enough for the most part, more "take a fairly standard Bon Jovi song and add awkwardly fitting jangly guitar refrains"

4. I'm really not a fan of that "uniform song length" of less than 5 minutes that they've been into lately, what happened to the days where most songs were over 5 minutes?

5. Jon's voice. Although it actually sounds good in places, at other times its too whiny (like in Seat Next To You). Still, it seems to have got better recently, so hopefully the next album he sings on, be it a solo or band album, will be better

6. This is more a personal gripe, but I feel some of the songs could have been heavier / more rocky while still attempting the country thing. Put The Boy Back In Cowboy is a good example of rock with country influences, or some parts of Everybody's Broken or Whole Lot Of Leaving. Keep The Faith with country elements would be better than Crush with country elements

7. The bonus tracks are really good. And they're not on the album!

And, that's about it. I've listened to about 7/12 songs a lot over the last year, so that's pretty good. Still hoping, as ever, for a decent rock album for the next one though!

i agree on the best album since TD but dont agree that summertime and WGIGO are bad songs - especially the later - i like the energy of it - not lyrically brilliant but a great "feel good" song.
regarding LH its tons better than HAND & Crush and just edges past Bounce.
LH has its dire moments - i love this town - till we aint strangers are imo terrible songs.
but also has some great moments like Any other day,walk like a man, boy back in cowboy and MAM.
On HAND - i dislike the 1st half of the album and it contains the worst Jovi song ever in WSYCGH and like the 2 bonus tracks the best.
Bounce - has some great songs - except All about lovin you and You had me from hello.
Crush has the dire thank you for lovin me, shes a mystery and capt crash.

I don't think the album after AOD is boring.
I love the whole album.
One of my favs.
Everybody's broken, The last night, One step closer, I love this town are really good songs.
It's hard to choose between HAND and LH what my best album is.
I think LH gets my vote.