My Thoughts on "Crush"

Crush isn't my favorite album, and it didn't get me into Bon Jovi either. Have A Nice Day got me into Bon Jovi. The only songs I really liked on Crush were Just Older, Its My Life, and I Don't Wanna Live Forever. They're all great songs, followed by Say It Isn't So and Thank You For loving me. Just Older should of been a single.

There's a third version? Hmm, ok. Don't think I've heard the Temptaion version as a b-side. So everybody got the same typo on the cover as I do. Was hopeing for a rare version. Kinda like the pink Slippery When Wet vinyls

Despite the fact that IML was what got me into the band, Crush is probably all things considered my least favourite Jovi album. That's not to say I think it's a bad album, but it ticks less of my boxes than any other of their albums do.

Individually some of the songs are very good (Two Story Town being my favourite among them), but there's a lot of problems with the album. Very little stands out as really great. The flow is kinda bad, and in general the whole thing sits together rather awkwardly ... which is kind of understandable when you think about it. After all, the album did start life as a Jon solo project, then transformed into a full band album, then mutated into a completely different band album somewhere down the line. A lot of the songs are cobbled together from various places: the Sex Sells demos, the Armageddon soundtrack, that songwriters conference thing in that castle in France, and apparently Next 100 Years being written for some Japanese company (although no one's confirmed whether thats true or not).

What I do like about it is that it fits rather well into how the rock scene was at the time ... hard rock was pretty much not a commercial force any more, and as such it wasn't just BJ who went down the pop-rock road ... they were in the company of Bryan Adams, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Aerosmith etc. I reckon the problem though is that the bands that did do interesting things in the 90s (BJ, Crue, Def Lep) all tried a little too hard to make a "back to their roots" record which still sounded contemporary

Yes, this pretty much sums up my feelings on it as well. It's not the change of sound b/c I LOVE HAND but the songs on Crush are just okay, nothing mindblowing. I really do love Capt Crash and Mystery Train though..