New Studio Album - Forever

obviously this was in the begining of their collaboration, co writers in rock groups werent so used so probably these were uncharted waters...
furthermore in the music industry there were ghost writers from many many years back...
ps. i hope we get some news soon about the future of the band.the photos with jons wine hat was a bit cringey if it truly was about the bj doc and not for a rose comercial

Uncharted for who though? One of the biggest reasons Desmond took off was his time co-writing with Kiss and I Was Made For Loving You / Heavens on Fire and that started in '79, a full seven years before this.

I'm not a Jerry fan of any kind, but I must say I appreciate him trying to get Desmond to talk about songs other than the obvious ones. We've heard Desmond tell the stories about You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' on a Prayer so it was nice to hear him talk about Wild Is the Wind, Blood on Blood, We All Sleep Alone, Make a Memory and stuff. Shame he didn't remembered Hearts Breaking Even, though I don't blame him considering his catalogue of songs.

I could listen all day to Desmond (or any other Bon Jovi co-writer) talk about the writing process of songs. I wish more interviews would address and ask the band about specific songs and its creation but I understand that it is a very small crowd that appreciates. There are understandably easier points to make when talking about when Jon knocked on the door of the DJ, the Soul Kitchen, or when the songwriting process is actually taken up tell the dutiful story of when Jon and Richie argued about the inclusion of Frankie in It's My Life.

That's one that always amuses me since they flesh it out about how important Frankie was to the song when I'm pretty sure that (exaggerated) all they did to the tune was add a talkbox and discuss these few lines. The rest probably was handed to them by Max Martin which somehow they "accidently" forget to tell

its true the kiss hits were prior to the bj desmond collaboration..
what i wanted to point out though is that either doc mcghee wanted to exploit the situation and make more money for him and the band or jbj and rs considered that an outside writer would harm the rock image in general...

in the end of the day i think they made the right choice.

This thing always kind of amuses and rubs me the wrong way. Sure, it's pretty easy to use both "Desmond wrote it for them!" And "Max Martin did that one because it sounds exactly like a BSB tune!". IML has hallmark Bon Jovi melodies, almost exactly the same progression as Bad Name and unquestionable cheesy Bon Jovi style lyrics! I'm not saying you're wrong, because we'll never really know for sure, but production tricks (45 people sounding Chorus and drum loops) aside, if Max Martin did write the entire song it was heavily carbon copied influenced by what the band did before....

I agree. It's how much it structurally sounds like BSB's Larger Than Life in the verses that gives me pause. But there certain turns of phrases like "Faith Departed" that scream Richie, "live while I'm alive" being used in "I Don't Want To Live Forever" which was clearly pre IML. I don't think we'll ever know who contributed what but it's clear the label asked for a by-the-numbers lead single in order to sell the album.

The thing that always bothered me a bit was the ego around it. Why not say "we wrote it together?" It started out this way, then Max Martin's role was talked down to "he just happened to be in the same room" at one time. They openly talk about Bad Name and Livin' On A Prayer and their collaboration with Desmond Child. Because they sought him out and the record company brought Martin to the table? Yeah he had written big hits for a lot of pop artists and Jon's boomer speeches on the Crush tour were aimed at talking those down, yet the band went on to chase every pop trend from 2000 onwards
Makes no sense from front to back.

I also for the life of me don't understand why so many rock bands went to Andreas Carlsson around that time who was - probably literally - just a cheaper Max Martin. His stuff is a lot more dated now, he didn't have quite the same hits, and it never felt like a natural fit for any band he worked with.

Imagine a Bounce with another Max Martin tune instead of trying to make Bye Bye Bye a hit for Bon Jovi

I brought this up because the whole "we are not like these boy bands" angle fell flat even on the next record, seeing how they went with another of their writers

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head - Desmond is the cool rock guy who also worked with other big names in the genre, while Max Martin is the guy who writes trendy pop songs and boomer Jon didn’t wanna be associated with that

Well, and maybe the fact that they’re also such close friends with Desmond makes it feel more like an artistic collaboration whereas bringing in Max Martin just felt like bringing in the guy who writes pop hits because they needed a hit single in the US (even though they initially brought Desmond in because they needed a hit as well).


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