Now Lets Talk About "Bounce"

Undivided - decentish song, probably the only track on the album that corroborates with Jon's ridiculous suggestion that Bounce is socially conscious record.

Everyday - Decent song again, but the song lyrically is pretty much an entire IML rewrite, You'd have thought with them both being lead singles, that they wouldnt have been focused on the same thing...

The Distance - good song.

Joey - over produced and lyrically pretty poor at times. Jon isnt the songwriter Bruce is, and in this song alone it really shows.

Missunderstood - pop song, and a good catchy one at that.

All About Loving You - TYFLM was crap, and this is only slightly better. Nuff said.

Hook Me Up - Good, nice to have a change of style/tempo, as with bounce, couldve been heavier...

Right Side Of Wrong - Better than Joey, pretty good song, but just doesnt blow me away...

Love Me Back To Life - Not great, not bad.

You Had Me From Hello - dont know!

Bounce - Good song, still feels a little "metal-light", couldve been far heavier...an actual rock song.

Open All Night - v good song, the best ballad jon's wrote for about 6 years.

Undivided - good song. not great. reminds of of something I'd write. easy memorable melody, got everything a chorus needs

Everyday - skip it everytime. single? wtf

The Distance - good song again just like undivided. not groundbreaking or amazing by any stretch of the imagination but just a great all round song.

Joey - grew on me. the story is cliched but could ring true about anyone when you think about it.

Missunderstood - absolutely brilliant little pop song. sorry there's no massive guitars or screaming. the beatles seemed to do ok writing catchy pop tunes.

All About Loving You - kinda weak as a ballad but when you can count always and bed of roses as your ballads, you can get away with not everything being great. most bands would love to be able to write half assed ballads lke this.

Hook Me Up - token heavy song, nice hook (no pun intended) but does nothing for me.

Right Side Of Wrong - cliched story, less likely to resonate with people than joey but still a decent song.

Love Me Back To Life - love it absolutely love it. i think too many people dont like it becausde it's so similar to the distance and this comes later so it's like: hmmm this is a rip off of the distance, wether it was recorded 1st or not. huge sound, great chorus, great middle 8, lyrics cheesier than michael jacksons ballsack, everything bon jovi are known and loved for.

You Had Me From Hello - nice acoustic part, again not great but still nice.

Bounce - Bounce's one wild night cept nowhere near as pointless/ crap.

Open All Night - best of the ballads



in the end./ its a good album, not a great album. the only thing negative I'll say is that there's too many ballads and they're not that strong and the layered guitars make most of the stuff hard to pull over really well live but then again, if they used backing tracks or more guitarists they'd get stick for that too.

i think most people have a problem simply because it's not: insert album of your choice here.

Undivided - 3/5
Everyday - 1/5
The Distance - crap
Joey - crap
Missunderstood - 1/5
All About Loving You - crap
Hook Me Up - 3/5
Right Side Of Wrong - 4/5
Love Me Back To Life - The better of the "Distance" twins. 3/5
You Had Me From Hello - 1/5
Bounce - 4/5
Open All Night - 3/5

Too many fillers.

Ice

Undivided: Lyrically just awful. A song about one of the defining moments of our time and we get some of the most heavy handed lyrics ever written. A powerful tune, should have been infintely better but the band showed that they arent capable of capturing the sort of feeling required for a song like this.

Everyday: Good tune, could have been a big hit but for the fact that "Its My Life" was released two years earlier. Then again if IML was never written, this song probably would never have existed.

The Distance: Great tune, great lyrics. One of the better songs they have written in the past 10 years. Arguably the best on the album.

Joey: Good change of pace, unexpected song from the band. Nice story.

Misunderstood: Great pop song. Excellent lyrics and tune. Maybe not what they should have released as a second single though.

All About Loving You: Awful for a band like Bon Jovi. If Westlife had released it then it'd be passable coz thats whats expected of them. Catchy song, cliched lyrics, pure formula song.

Hook Me Up: Nothing special. Nice and heavy without ever threatening to be a classic.

Right Side of Wrong: Good song, good tune and good story. Why though, the first time that I heard it did I think I'd heard it before?

Love me Back To Life: Good song. Perhaps similar to The Distance, but nonetheless, worthy of a place on the album.

You Had me From Hello: Awful. No place on the album. Very pedestrian.

Bounce: Loved it to start with, still like it but less so.

Open All Night: Tidy song but not worthy of a place on the album. Feel like I've heard it somewhere before also.

Definitely think its a decent album, far better than Crush, but the ballads kill it. Dont think the production is up to much, like most on this site, I hope I never meet Luke Ebbin.

Using Ice's system.


Undivided - 3/5- Had potential, but just an ok song.
Everyday - 2/5- Too much like IML
The Distance - 4/5- Something a bit different.
Joey - crap Hate this song with a passion!!
Missunderstood - 4/5- Catchy pop song
All About Loving You - crap
Hook Me Up - 3/5- Again, another song with potential that just falls short.
Right Side Of Wrong - Crap
Love Me Back To Life - Crap
You Had Me From Hello - Crap
Bounce - 5/5- Probably my favorite song on the album.
Open All Night - Crap

I agree with Ice about the fillers. I use the skip button way too much when listening to this CD. The slower songs are just awful.

Aloha !

Bounce is one of the worst albums Bon Jovi have ever made, and I disagree about almost every point Krycek has made.

Undivided
A good song. However, it was dated already when it was released. Yes, 9/11 was a big tragic thing, however, the world kept spinning and all this didn't live as much as it did in the USA. It's got a new approach of Bon Jovi making a song with different guitar parts, but the guitar solo sucks, is too simplistic, and when this song was performed live during the Bounce tour it was slowed down so much that all the power it had was gone.

Everyday
One of the biggest wannabe rock songs Bon Jovi has ever made. Heavy guitars, a heavy sounding guitar solo's and about 100 guitar layers so it all sounds very heavy. However, it's a song you can't do anything with. It's got a big chorus that just doesn't work, you can't jump on it when it's played live and in fact it was one of the most boring songs during the Bounce tour. And the "live my life" lyric was already worn out.

The Distance
Bon Jovi doing Creed. Midtempo, too many guitars to make it sound heavy again, again, no good guitar solo (though the live version made up for that) but this song just doesn't deliver anything.

Joey
One of those storytelling songs Jon and Richie kept on going on about. It's a complete ripp off from Elton John's Levon, and is there anyone who felt the story and was interested in Joey's life? I wasn't. A boring song when performed live as well, no one cared, a silly excuse for a guitar solo, and the "tell me who you're gonna be" from Richie as background sounds silly as well. This is not a rock song.

Missunderstood
Complete crap. The lyrics are nice, however, the melody is just too stupid for words. Iiiiiiiiiiiii. I mean, who writes such a chorus? Oh yeah, and Jon couldn't sing it live. Nobody noticed as everyone was too busy singing along, but it all sounded flat live. In fact, just terrible. And no, this is not a rock song either.

All About Loving You
One of the most terrible ballads Bon Jovi have ever made. It's a Thank You For Loving Me II, and this one doesn't even have a guitar solo. Bon Jovi obviously has lost it with this one considering power ballads, as it doesn't have stong vocals, doesn't have powerful guitars, and doesn't have a good guitarsolo. Utter crap.

Hook Me Up
One of the best songs on Bounce. Heavy but this time driving guitars and good vocals, though again not very powerful. Too bad the guitar solo sucks, but Richie made up for it when it was performed live by tabbing parts, which made me wonder why he didn't do that on the album version.

Right Side Of Wrong
Again one of those storytelling songs. And again boring. This was supposed to be the big epic song I guess, but again, didn't work. There comes a big guitar solo but it's completely misplaced in my opinion. All those references to Butch and Sundance, and Jon's obsession with the poor people on this world who're trying to survive doesn't work on this one.

Love Me Back To Life
Very strong vocals when it comes to the album Bounce, but it's no miracle why it didn't make it to the setlists. It's probably too hard for Jon to sing, as it sounds a bit forced on the album as well. Again, no guitar solo, and the chorus just sounds forced, not only in the way Jon sings it, but it sounds pathetic "love me heal me make me feel it blahblah".

You Had Me From Hello
Another one of those nice storytellers. With a story that's completely ripped of from Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight and the melody could be from a Backstage Boys song. A pathetic song for a rock band.

Bounce
The best rock song on the album, together with Hook Me Up. Again, it sounded terrible live with Jon having flat nasaul vocals in the beginning of every show, and because of the many guitarlayers it sounded a bit thin on stage. And again, no guitar solo.

Open All Night
After Bounce they must've thought it was a good thing to end the album with one of the most boring sounding songs they've ever made. After the Open All Night from the boxset almost nobody could understand why they ditched that track and preferred to write another one with the same title. Silly guitar stuff as well from a guitarplayer that once wrote guitarsolo's like Dry County and Keep The Faith.

So, in the end it's just a crap album. It's a heavy rock album with only 4 rock songs (of which 1 is utter crap (Everyday) and one is dated (Undivided). It's a storytelling album with songs that tell a story that doesn't bother me and it has ballads that are poor excuses for being ballads.

I'd give it 1 star out of 5.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Bounce is one of my fav albums with great rock songs
but lousy ballads. I liked the ballads more when they were
about heartache and suffering! It's all too lovey dovey now
I would give the album 4 out of 5 stars

Amen to that.

I missed you!