Quote:
Originally Posted by Elvistico
What a complicated post and even after 2 reads I still am not sure to really get your point. But I think I do and I do not agree.
Back in the 80's Jon was a master at Bubblegum stories about being cowboys, about highschool romance and he was a master at writing sloganesque songs, basically stuff that would be great on t-shirts. Nothing wrong with that! It's like action hero movies or those romantic comedies and chickflicks. Those are extremely popular. It's for the masses and BJ were extremely good at it. So, it fitted perfect and they gave us the blockbusters.
In the 90'ies, they even got better by adding more layers to the lyrics at times and writing Dry County, These Days, I believe, Hey God, ... And on love songs, Jon remained on top of his game. ( Even if he was already selling us the idea that Bed of Roses and Always were not lovesongs )
Post 2000 things did not improve any further. Basically there was an overload of moon, june, spoon ( under the form of live your life, fight, stand up, don't back down, stand your ground, don't follow, ... ) but Jon would comment on those songs as songs that tackled various serious topics. Except for the fact that if Jon had not told you so, every song could just be about anything. And that's where Jon and Richie would always tell you that they were such great songwriters because they were able to take a specific story, and tell it in such a way that anyone could relate to it.
That was of course one way to look at it, but another way to look at it was the fact that their lyrics were pretty lazy, uber generic and never got above the level of bubblegum and t-shirt slogans.
In term of food - Bon Jovi were and remained Mc Donalds. Nothing wrong with that. Mc Donalds is probably the best fastfood chain in the world. Nothing wrong with fast-food. It's delicious at times and no-one can resist it.
It becomes another story when a fast food chain will try to sell you its fastfood as something different than what it is.
Fast forward to 2020 : Finally songs as lower the flag, Do what you can, American Reckoning and Unbroken are songs that are right on topic, no doubt about what they are and because of the topic, a lot of people will be able to relate. Sure, you can not interprete them freely anymore, but they are stories well written. Finally he's getting there. Weather everyone likes this or not is another story, but Jon finally did it.
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I think I already clarified what I meant in my previous reply, we basically agree on most points and what you said is what I was trying to say except that I don't agree that they haven't written good songs about heavy themes until this album, quite the opposite, this album is a step back in that regard, and that was my whole point.
Jon has written ****ing excellent songs about heavy themes. I'm sure I don't need to list them. Those songs have stood the test of time, the songs in 2020 won't. Well "Blood in the Water" will probably become a fan favorite for its multiple virtues but the lyrics will make us cringe in 15 years, and believe me, we'll be still complaining about the lyric quality in 15 years because Jon is never going to retire and we are a weird bunch that are way too loyal for our own good (well, not me, I know I'm a bad fan).
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Sorry if my initial post was basically me rambling for 5 minutes, I tend to give a TL;DR version when I realize that I'm digressing, but these past few months have been exhausting and my brain is not as sharp as it used to be.
I thought it was pretty funny that you mentioned that I wasn't making a lot of sense. It reminded me of a creative writing teacher I had a long long long time ago, in another lifetime. You see, writing is my passion and I had this idea for a while of making it into the cinema/writing world. Of course I'm not stupid and I know my chances were slim to none so I got a degree that would give me a good, stable job first, and then I tried fulfilling my dream. Long story short, I dropped out of cinema school but I did get lots of praise for my writing. I was actually invited to write in the school magazine. The ego boost didn't hurt but I was as cynical then in my twenties as I am now in my... whatever-ies... and I certainly did not believe my own hype, I know that I had used a very bloated and pedantic style that seemed to a favorite among the teachers but my own writing style was more chaotic and rambling-like so I did not have a bright future there. Good to know I wasn't wrong and I didn't make a fool of myself
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