These Days

I was surprised when I realized TD seemed to be the fans' choice album. I like KTF the best, though besides KTF I have a hard time ranking their albums in general, and I still havent even heard LH, HAND or Bounce (don't anticipate that will have much effect though, based on what I read here).

I got TD as a birthday present a few weeks after it came out, and when I first heard it I had a sickening feeling I was going to loathe it. I hated Hey God and I still despise SFTP, it's one of the cheesiest songs and cheesiest videos I've ever heard/seen. Hey God I will never like musically, though lyrically I can respect the sentiment. But many of the other tunes I ended up loving, mainly for their subtlety and simple heartfelt sentiment.

But to put this in context- I was a new BJ fan who had just gorged on Cross Road, New Jersey and KTF for a good year before hearing TD. I think it's a decent album but I don't love it as much as many here, and the song itself- TD- sounds too much like a "let's sit down and write something socially conscious" for me to like it too much. Maybe the fact that Jon did a cheesy Hello! magazine interview where he said he wanted to write something socially conscious doesn't help. Or maybe I really don't like when they say stuff like "there ain't nobody left to take the blame" because this is one of their cliche type phrases that doesn't mean anything except in some lazy abstract sense.

Anyways, I like the album much more now than when I was 15 though.



Edited because it's not Dear God!

Say what you will but silly rockers are a major part of what Bon Jovi is, and always has been, about. And, back then, they did those silly rockers as good as anybody.

This band has done so many awesome things during the time I´ve been along that it would be unfair or impossible for me to pick just one album and say this one is the best ever.

But if someone held a gun on my forehead and forced me to pick an album it would be TD. I became a fan by the era of SWW. Later on, for me, the release of NJ was the biggest thing that happened in the late 80´s. I was in my late teens at the time of those albums and consequently, both albums became an integral part of my life for good.

Yet with TD, I learned to appreciate them even more. I remember buying the CD the day it was released and listening to it on my way home, via my portable CD player. At that time, there were no pre-heard snippets, of course. So everything except TAALS was really new for me. Track after track, the instant classics just kept on following each other. I remember thinking, now there´s been 4 great songs in a row, so the next one has to be a filler track or a skipper. But no way, only classics. It was an unbelievable experience.

TC comes very close. I really appreciate that album, too. I just wish they had recorded it with Peter Collins.

This is my favourite Bon Jovi album and I'm a picky sod with my music. What makes this top for me is the standards of the music and song writing. The sound is not of the 'stadium rocker' type that followed on Crush and lyrically, it's not the 'by-the-numbers' lazy song writing that covers many of the tracks over the last ten years.

It's a bunch of well written songs, some much more than others, but as a whole, it all fits together perfectly. I don't know what 'mind-frame' JBJ and Sambora were in when they wrote KTF and these Days, I wish they'd go back there!

These Days is now 25 years old and Jon has put up a mini-review up on his Instagram;

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CCE3z4D...=1kyzsmn57y6c5

He lists most of the songs on there as his favourites which surprised me, particularly “Something for the Pain” which I’m sure I read here years ago he didn’t even like. I like how he says the album still holds up which I agree with as it’s probably the most timeless out of all their albums in my opinion.

Anyway, nothing to intricate. Just nice to see him talking about the album and to mark the occasion.

That was actually pretty cool... Anything besides the Soul Kitchen, Hampton Waters, and the need to explain that 2020 is an election year.

"This Anal Love Song"? That pronounciation threw me off...

Lol!!! That's the pornhub mix!!....

He said his favorites in order, according the album tracklist

Yeah, he just red the tracklist of the teleprompter and then just added Diamond Ring at the end. That doesn't mean much.

I'm still surprised that he even made a video to acknowledge the anniversary, given how this album has been criminally underplayed by him in comparison to other records of their prime years. This did not seem like a PR campaign, but rather something he felt like doing feeling bored, which feels more authentic obviously.