Originally Posted by Thomas Anderson

This is hardly a new or suprising thing, or limited to Bon Jovi. The reason bands release singles is to grab potential fans, and hope they buy the album, and hope that based on that they will become a fan and then would ultimately hear more of the back catalogue. Most bands will have a large portion of their fanbase made up of people who only know the hits.There are bands that I like but don't know much more than their greatest hits album. Potentially I might in future buy other of their albums based on that, but yes most bands are remembered perhaps for having sold however many albums, but ultimately people remember a handful of songs. The longer the career the more hits to choose from, and some bands will achieve this better than others. Queen for example (one I know to use) have 2 greatest hits albums; near 40 songs that a lot of people would recognise and probably like, here anyway. As for not playing old/rare/non-hits as often, they know that a large percentage of their fans at a concert will not know them and maybe not appreciate them. Also with more and more hits to choose from they have less space to add these rarities, without fear of dropping older hits and losing fans.