New Studio Album - Forever

God, absolutely. There's enough gas in the tank with songs like Lonely, Who Would You Die For, Teardrop To The Sea. Dude is fully capable of writing them and not able to release them to the masses that don't want that side of him. Really bums me out how much he sold out to a certain sound.

What's kinda crazy to me is that they're so focused on trying to appeal to the US market (which isn't working anymore nowadays anyways, no matter if they release It's My Life no. 42 or something darker), when they could just focus on the European/Australian/Japanese markets instead, where darker and more creative/artistic songs would probably be more accepted as they were in the past. 2020 still managed to score a bunch of decent album chart positions in Europe + Australia + Japan, so clearly the band does still have a significant album-purchasing audience in those markets. Why not build on that and pander to those audiences? Japan, the UK and Germany are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th biggest music markets in the world after all.

Everything changed post 2000. Crush was still a Euro-centric album for me, aside from It's My Life which was designed to do exactly what it did, put Bon Jovi back on the map in the US. Over the last twenty years Jon changed from being a rocker to become a mainstream celebrity in the United States.

When new music is released he isn't just confined to rock radio promotion, he is on The View and other day time talk shows. Whether it is the intoxication from that sort of profile or simply more money from being a celebrity in the US than being popular in Europe/Japan I don't know. What I do know is that Jon absolutley ran with that status.

I am not sure if it was by design or coincidence, but he completely drove a straight line to the American housewife fanbase that has long been used to critisize him. Heading into the 21st century, there was a hint the band was shaking off those cliches and morphing into a mature band that most demographics could enjoy, esepcially in Europe.

Funny thing is: In Burning Bridges, the record company adopted that strategy, releasing the world debut of Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning in Brazil, and We Don't Run in the next day in Europe. At least here, it created a considerable buzz, both songs are occasional on some radios.

I think a lot of that is just nature of the beast and following the age of your audience. If the target market was 17 year old girls in the 80's. by the time you got to the 2000's, if you were a fan then, you're going to be in your late 30s/early 40's by the 2000s which absolutely is the target market for shows like that.

It's hard to defend his actions but he could have done a lot worse trying to be a US Celebrity,. The last few years with the wine has been pretty off putting but I can't think of a lot of things he's attached his name to.

Anyway, the housewife stuff is very unfortunate but I kinda get it. Crush had them appealing to the older audience at their current age and a younger crowd (me!) so I can't be too upset haha.

Agreed. Bounce tanked in the US but did pretty well in most other territories and yet it was designed to appeal to five different American audiences so go figure.

Agree, but the record company always have a big say, they are happy with each album having a lead single along the lines of IML.

It depends on how involved labels are. AFAIK they aren't signed to a label, only back at Universal for distribution purposes (please correct me f I'm wrong) since 2016ish.

The labels are WELL aware how little the band moves physical product on new material. I also don't know if they got a cut of the albums packaged with tour tickets. I assume so? But the labels not stupid, it knows the band makes the big money from touring and has for a long time.

Not quite. It's more than just distrubution. They still have all the regular services that a label offer. So yes, the label would certainly get a say in single releases. The main difference is that the band owns the recording and licence the album to the label for a set period of time. Once that expires the band can then extend the licence, licence it to another label, re-release it themselves, or do nothing with it if they so choose.

Gooooot it, thanks. I don't know why I heard it was just being distributed but financed and operated by the band, good to know.

Choosing to start with Limitless makes a little more sense now at least.

I'm still a bit hazy on how they can be dropped by a label and then resign with the same terms, or even terms more in the band's favour.