What was the last album you genuinely enjoyed?

Good tracklist. My list is something different.

Undivided
Everyday
Anoher Reason To Believe
Misunderstood
Alive
Distance
Hook Me Up
Satellite (I know that this song is not part of the sessions of recording of this album, but I include it in the list.)
No Regrets
Standing
Bounce

At the time, Have a Nice Day was the last album I truly enjoyed and made me proud to be a fan when it first came out. I thought at the time the band were back on form delivering a less effects/more guitar-driven album with more honest songs and more attitude. I think I let my hope and fanboyish-ness run away with me at the time. I think a lot less of the album now but back in 2005/6 i listened to it with pride.

I’m going to cheat because… why not.

Pre-Shanks era, it’d be Bounce. I really really really love Bounce, the album it is and especially the album it could have been. Crush is better in terms of songwriting, freshness, style… but I guess after a while I missed a more introspective BJ and ended up listening only to bits and pieces when I was in the mood for it. And I was hardly ever in the mood for half of the album and most of the b-sides. And I spent A LOT OF MONEY on the b-sides!! I don’t think it was possible to rip a CD back then or at least I wasn’t aware you could do it, and I moved from house to house for many years so I’d only listen to the album and every once in a while I would rediscover some of the demos. So my Crush experience is having most of the album and probably almost all the b-sides on my “BJ songs” playlist but almost never listening to the album as a whole. I know, I’m weird.
With Bounce it was different from the beginning because I only disliked one song so I would always listen to the whole thing and only skip that song when I was not feeling lazy. And I managed to get the exclusive CD with almost all the demos and an extra one with the rest so I spent less money and time tracking down elusive and expensive import CDs. I got used to Bounce + demos. And I guess I discovered how to rip CDs by then because I remember blasting all the songs on my shitty speakers on a very old and slow pc. Ah, good times

Shanks-Richie era, HAND. I kinda of shrugged it off after it came out. The very blatant “hey look at us we are very hip” pop-faux punk-rock vibe was not my thing at all and I didn’t like the title track at all. And I hated some songs. And I got tired very fast of all the poppy second half. And when the boxset came out I listened to it over and over and over again for months and forgot about HAND. But for some reason some songs got stuck in my head during all those “abstinence” months and I felt like I NEEDED to revisit them. It had never happened with a BJ album before and has never happened since, if I don’t like something/don’t feel it, it’d never get stuck in my head. My negative reaction might mellow over time but I won’t choose to listen to something I don’t like or I don’t care. So HAND was a strange phenomenon, I felt as if I didn’t care about the album, but never really stopped playing it.
Anyway… I went back after maybe a year and my opinion hadn’t changed a lot, I still disliked/hated the same songs/overall style but I kept going back and back and back to the album. To the point where very recently (as in between BB and THINFS) I realized I was drawn to the songs because I felt a connection to the lyrics. There was a thematic cohesion underneath that I had dismissed due to the too commercial sound and some very poor lyrics. It was only when I really paid attention to the original demos that it made sense why I felt drawn to it and I managed to say out loud “Yes, I like Complicated and not because it’s catchy, it really fits in the more *darker/defiant* themes the original album was going for and I totally dig it”.
tl;dr: even though I don’t like some songs and I don’t always feel in the mood for others, this is the album I’ve felt more drawn to since TD, including all the recent ones.

Post-Richie, I listen to BB/THINFS very frequently. BB has some filler that I haven’t listened to since it came out, but from THINFS I won’t skip a song if I’m stuck with the CD for some reason. I don’t hate any songs which is a first since Bounce and I choose to listen to the albums instead of random songs that pop out while I’m on Spotify.

I had to choose three different albums because it's really three different bands so I don’t think it’s fair to compare..

For me it's THINFS. As far as touring goes I just want to see the band again out of nostalgia and in the hope that they'll play some of the new stuff that I've never heard before (and probably will never again). My expectations as far as vocals are concerned are at an all time low. They really should change the format of their concerts to accommodate for Jon's declining vocal strength, but I can still get *something* out of the shows.

In the studio however, the band can still deliver in my opinion. BB teased what they can do and THINFS delivered as far as I'm concerned. Sure I would've liked to have seen more Teardrop, WWYDF and Fingerprints-like material in THINFS - but I thoroughly enjoy the album as a whole and I'd be satisfied with similar releases, in terms of quality, going forward.

This House came out on a time that I was in need of something to get my life working... I was very sad because some problems and that album made me very happy.. Living With The Ghost got me through a breakup.... God Bless This Mess is the definition of my life...

Hope things are better for you now mate. And it's great to hear that the band's music can still have that effect of people - it was cathartic for me also.

I mashed BB & THINFS together today for a car journey.

If they'd released this instead of both I'd be happy...

THINFS
Living with the ghost
We don't run (bb version)
sat night
Tear drop
born again
God bless this mess
devils in temple
Who would you die for
I'm your man
I will drive you home

Not bad at all that. For me the albums post 2000 have been quantity over quality... This is my final Bounce Revisited

Undivided
Everyday
The distance
Another reason to believe
Misunderstood (single version)
All about lovin you
Hook me up
Right side of wrong
Standing
Love me back to life
We can dance
Bounce
No Regrets - bonus song, deluxe edition
Postcards from the wasteland - bonus song, deluxe edition

I still listen to BB & THINFS on a fairly regular basis. I've also started listening to TD more often and have a much higher appreciation for it than I ever did.

Most of the releases after Crush I haven't listened to since the initial "new album" high wore off.

Lost Highway. While a polarizing album, it was the last album that Jon sounded normal. His voice wasn't shot through tonnes of doctoring and reverb and grossness, and the last album where he genuinely seemed to love. He loves Lost Highway, and it shows. That's what I love about it, is that that album seems to actually mean something to him. All the other ones he seems so disinterested and bored with about a month after the release. I think Jon still genuinely loves Lost Highway though. And I do, too.