Aftermath VS What about now

Aftermath is an awesome record, I listened to it more than anything else the last half year. What About Now may possibly get sold or chucked in the garbage and it hurts me to think they can make something that bad.

I decided to revisit Aftermath, and wow, it's really solid. Tracks 7-10 are all a step above anything on What About Now. Yes, there's filler, but so too is there on WAN. There's no doubt in my mind that AOTL is the better album.

I quite like a few tracks of What About Now, particularly 'Army of One' & 'That's What The Water Made Me' - I can't stand 'What's Left of Me' and the rest I'm neither here nor there about.

Yet, I'm really digging Aftermath of The Lowdown. I've been listening to the album quite regularly for the past 3 months or so. I'm loving the majority of it!

What's Left of Me is my favorite song from Album, but it can not compete with Aftermath of the Lowdown.

Aftermath of the Lowdown is the best.


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Aftermath, hmm... Bit of a fan when I first got hold of it I must say. But it soon became forgettable. Not a patch on 'Richie solo pt. 1 and 2' in terms of revisitability.

What About Now is still getting plays and I'm yet to get sick of it, which inevitably will happen.

So, in the big battle between Aftermath and What About Now - my winner is What About Now.

Not much weight in this discussion but a fun comparison nonetheless.

Neither are exactly exceptional in my book, but for different reasons. What About Now is kind of just ok the whole through - meanwhile, Aftermath has massive highs, but it's let down by low / ok points. Plus the production on both is just horrific. So murky and overdone.

Overall though, Aftermath has to win for me, just because it does have moments of greatness. I think if you cut a few songs, like:

Nowadays
Weathering the Storm
Sugar Daddy
Learning to Fly

...the album is just brilliant. And those ones aren't even bad, they're just not as great as the rest. Especially I'll Always Walk Beside You, You Can Only Get So High and World

What About Now just flatlines throughout, even though it's not bad. Very small peaks in the middle (from Amen through to Thick as Thieves), but nothing huge. So Aftermath is the victor in my book.

"Learning how to fly" is better than every Jovi rock song past 2000.

Whacked AOTL into the CD player in the car this morning for the first time in a month.

Tracks 7-10 are still amongst the best work Richie has produced. Absolutely exceptional. YCOGSH is such an amazing piece of work. I can't believe how the album has been ignored on the strength of those four songs alone.

As an album, I do think WAN is more consistent and better because of that but those 4 songs are head and shoulders above most, if not all, of WAN.

Nowadays and Learning to Fly are the best two

Nowadays came on my ipod the other day and I was half way through and thinking what the hell am I listening to and only realised it was Richie after looking at the playlist. It's not a bad song if it was a second rate punk-pop band.

It sounds nothing like Richie and a lot of the songs on Aftermath are like that - which is why I dislike it.

However Seven Years Gone is the BIG sort of song What About Now is missing.