Taking a right left!

The Nashville sessions were hardly a left turn. WSYCGH hit big time, and they wanted to cash in while the impact lasted. Hardly a brave artistic move.

I still say it's easy to be cynical ... "cashing in" vs. "finding a new sound that they feel comfortable with" ... seeing as none of us know for sure, I guess it all depends on your perception

But it started off as an experiment ... Who Says was an experiment, and one that apparently worked ... just like in science, if you conduct an experiment that succeeds, you don't usually just ignore it and go on to something else

Yep, I'm with you!

deb

If it really was just an experiment, then why did they start working on the whole thing so quickly after Who Says hit big? And why an entire album of Nashville songs, not just some sessions for a few songs for the next regular album? Plus, Who Says was originally arranged in the traditional BJ way, it was just the remix which had all the country instrumentation. With songs like Whole Lot Of Leavin, there are forced sounding country slides and what not in by default. It is that way because he songs are aimed at country radio, not because they feel comfortable with it. Otherwise they would've been arranging songs that way for a long time. If not, that'd been hypocritical.

I'm not saying they don't like the new songs and all, but these session definitely took place because Who Says was such a big hit in the country charts. And thus, the album is not a left turn. Especially not with songs such as "I Love This Town", which is a rewrite of Who Says to me.

But hey, it's okay. I'd be hard pushed to call BJ an experimental, "left turn" band anyway. Some might say KTF and TD, but these were just updating their sound, because the band knew they'd be dead if they just kept the 80s thing. Same goes for the downtuning on Bounce.

I mean that Who Says was the experiment, sorta the gateway if you will .... if the gate opens wide, you're gonna step through it, right? The so called "rock" version of Who Says is still pretty country, it's definitely not the typical BJ song, especially not post-2000.

You use the word hypocritical, can you explain where you think the hypocricy is? I can't really see any.

I think as well that the whole "left turn" concept is a pretty subjective one ... I mean, it's not like they suddenly out of nowhere produced an electro-dance album (probably a good thing really), but they are trying out new stuff, whatever their reasons for it are. Natural progression is much better than forced "left turns" anyways

I don't really take your point about Bounce either. Crush was a massive commercial success, why would they assume they need to adopt a heavier sound in order to sell?

To me it was just a typical mid-tempo, second-single kind of song. Maybe a bit more "country" (country? Well, if Saturday Is Country then I suppose so), but nothing too special. Mind you, I really like and always liked the song, but experimental? Uhm...

If the band really had wanted to have their songs sound all country resp have them arranged that way for so long, but didn't do it because they were afraid of the fans' reactions, then that's hardly artistic "honesty". I, however, doubt it.

Because detuning and numetal were in when Bounce was released. 2002 is not 2000, and you can't tell me that the openings of Hook Me Up or Undivided are typical Bon Jovi. IML had a boyband sound to it (and was co-written by Max Martin), and on Bounce there are some traces of "modern rock" or numetal or whatever.


A general word, I hope I don't come over too negative here. I like most of the songs mentioned above, but I'm just trying to be realistic.