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I think what I meant was misunderstood, or I didn't explain it properly.

I am not saying he should have written TD or DA again, just similar quality. The example could have been Keep the Faith, or Slipperly, or New Jersey. My point is, I don't believe that he moved through the times of the late 80s, into the early 90s and then late 90s adapting to the styles while delivering top quality music and then 3-5 years later simply couldn't do it anymore.

The only acceptable explantion for that would be as someone said, his well run dry. I don't think that was the case.

By the way, full kudos to Jon for being able to recognize popular music and be able to combine that with his own. I don't get why that's a stick to beat him with, even if it was blatant copying. Noel Gallgher was doing that for years, still is in fact. It's one of the things I like most about Oasis too.

What's baffling is he stopped being able to do that successfully in the space between TD/DA and Bounce.

Why would that be baffling? He was about 40 when Bounce was released. How long do you expect him to keep up with pop music and its changing trends in a non contrived manner? I mean, he did keep up with current music longer. Have A Nice Day, 2005, has "Novocaine" on it. A song very much informed by I'm Not Okay by My Chemical Romance, an emo band. It's just that Bon Jovi could not be that band, could not cater to that audience. It just would not have worked to "properly" catch up with that wave.

The difference is that Oasis were always influenced by The Beatles, and yes ripped them off a lot. They never chased trends. But Jon changes his style depending on what is currently popular for every record. In the end it mophed the Bon Jovi sound into a completely different band to what they were in the 80s or 90s.

If Oasis reformed tomorrow they would still sound exactly like Oasis.

When it comes to following musical trends, I dont give Jon that much credit. I believe this is where the producers come in.



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Yep, that only makes it worse 😂

I'm sure that Shanks steers things in a more modern sounding direction, but Jon gets the final say. If he didn't want the band to sound like The Killers or Imagine Dragons or whatever the next hip thing is, he could could say so. To be honest I think he somewhat did that with 2020. It was certainly a step in the right direction sonically.

Beaten this point to death but in 1993/1994 while recording Someday I'll Be Saturday Night Jon gave the engineer a copy of Soul Asylum's Runaway Train and said "Make it sound like that". Jon claims they stole Hearts of Stone for Never Say Goodbye.

I think Seb is dead on, they've been doing this for decades, it only became noticeable when they got older and the bands they were "inspired by" stayed the same age. You can't listen to an album like Bounce and then think Shanks is behind them wanting to sound younger, you just can't.

I agree, but you only have to listen to some of the other stuff that Shanks has produced and his has exactly the same sound as a lot of Bon Jovi stuff. Shanks wants to produce a hit as much as Jon wants to sing on one. Though I do feel that Jon has pretty much come to accept that maybe they are not a hit single band anymore (after Do What You Can failed), which can only be a good thing when it comes to new material.

It's almost impossible to be 100% original now in music, everything has been done. Artists copy from other artists all the time. There isn't many that haven't done it. And if you are being directly influenced by the music you love I don't really have a problem with it. But when you are ripping off whatever is currently in the top 10 then it just feels very shallow...

I certainly am not arguing that Shanks is also doing it with them (dude apes so many legendary guitar sounds). I'm more making the point that thinking Shanks is the mastermind behind taking other songs and making them their own....I think the rot in the wood goes further. The point was made that Novocaine was just My Chemical Romance rehashed, Novocaine wasn't a Shanks song.

I agree, it's shallow and lazy but this has gone pre-2005.

You're right of course. Destination Anywhere was definitely trying to be what was modern at the time. But it worked. Maybe because Jon wasn't that much older than the bands he was trying to be like. It still felt like he was young enough and contemporary enough to get away with it. When you are in you 50s and trying to sound like bands in their 20's it just feels wrong.